AWOKLU. 
OP 

HILLS 


JONATHAN  DANIELS 


1 


®l|p  S.  M.  Bill  ICtbrarg 


North  (Earnltna  Sitale  Ininfraitg 


THE  DANIELS  COLLECTION 


h: 


THIS  POOR  IS  DUE  ON  THE  DATE 
INDICATED  BELOW  AND  IS  SUB- 
JECT TO  AN  OVERDUE  FINE  AS 
POSTED  AT  THE  CIRCULATION 
DESK. 


OCT  '3  1  1980   ?» 


^ookfi  ftp  Jflr.  Correp* 


NATURE'S  INVITATION.     i6mo,  ^i.io,  net. 

Postage  extra. 
THE     CLERK     OF    THE    WOODS.      i6mo, 

$i.io,  net.     Postpaid,  J1.20, 

FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA.  i6mo,  ^i.io, 
net.     Postpaid,  $1.19. 

EVERYDAY  BIRDS.  Elementary  Studies. 
With  twelve  colored  Illustrations  repro- 
duced from  Audubon.     Square  i2mo,  $1.00. 

BIRDS    IN    THE    BUSH.     i6mo,  $1.25. 

A    RAMBLER'S    LEASE.     i6mo,  $1.25. 

THE    FOOT-PATH     WAY.        i6mo,  gilt    top, 

$1.25- 

A   FLORIDA   SKETCH-BOOK.     i6mo,  $1.25. 
SPRING      NOTES      FROM      TENNESSEE. 

i6mo,  $1.25. 
A  WORLD  OF  GREEN  HILLS.    i6mo,  $1.25. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 

Boston  and  New  York. 


A  WORLD  OF  GREEN 
HILLS 

OBSERVATIONS  OF  NATURE 

AND  HmiAN  NATURE 

IN  THE  BLUE 

RIDGE 

BY 

BRADFORD  TORREY 


He  joyes  in  groves,  and  makes  himself e  full  blythe 
With  sundrie  flowers,  in  wilde  fieldes  gathered. 

Spenser. 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

mt  EitjersiUe  ©«i^^,  Cambridge 


COPYRIGHT,  1898,  BY  BRADFORD  TORREY 
ALIi  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


CONTENTS 

PAOB 

NORTH  CAROLINA. 

A  Day's  Drive  in  Thkee  States      ...  3 

In  Quest  of  Ravens 34 

A  Mountain  Pond 71 

Birds,  Flowers,  and  People         ,        .        .  104 

VIRGINIA. 

A  Nook  in  the  Alleghanies     ....  145 

At  Natural  Bredoe 208 

Index 283 


NORTH  CAROLINA 


A  WORLD  OF  GEEEN  HILLS 


A  DAY'S  DRIVE  IN  THREE  STATES 

In  a  day  and  a  night  I  had  come  from 
early  May  to  middle  June ;  from  a  world  of 
bare  boughs  to  a  forest  clad  in  all  the  ver- 
dure of  summer.  Such  a  shine  as  the  big, 
lusty  leaves  of  the  black-jack  oaks  had  put 
on!  I  could  have  raised  a  shout.  In  the 
day  when  "all  the  trees  of  the  field  shall 
clap  their  hands,"  may  I  be  somewhere  in 
the  black-jack's  neighborhood.  Hour  after 
hour  we  sped  along,  out  of  North  Carolina 
into  South  Carolina :  now  through  miles  and 
miles  of  forest;  now  past  a  lonely  cabin, 
with  roses  before  the  door,  white  honey- 
suckle covering  the  fence,  and  acres  of  sunny 
ploughed  land  on  either  side.  Here  a  river 
ran  between  close  green  hills,  and  there  the 
hills  parted  and  disclosed  the  revolving  hori- 
zon set  with  blue  mountains.      Then,  at  a 


4  NORTH  CAROLINA 

little  past  noon,  the  porter  appeared  with 
his  brush.  "  Seneca  is  next,"  he  said.  I 
alighted  in  lonely  state,  was  escorted  to 
the  hotel,  did  my  best  with  a  luncheon,  — 
gleaned  bit  by  bit  out  of  an  outlying  wilder- 
ness of  small  dishes,  —  and  at  the  earliest 
moment  took  my  seat  in  a  "  buggy  "  beside 
a  colored  boy  who  was  to  drive  me  to  Wal- 
halla,  nine  miles  away.  At  that  point  I  was 
to  be  met,  the  next  morning,  by  the  carriage 
that  should  convey  me  into  the  mountains. 

Seneca  is  a  smallish  place,  but  my  colored 
driver  was  no  countryman.  "  Boston  ?  " 
Yes,  yes ;  he  had  lived  there  once  himself. 
He  had  been  a  Pullman  porter.  "  But  you 
don't  get  to  learn  anything  in  that  way,"  he 
added,  a  little  disdainfully ;  "  just  running 
back  and  forth."  He  had  "  waited "  in 
Florida,  and  had  been  to  Jamaica  and  I  for- 
get where  else,  though  he  was  only  twenty- 
three  years  old.  He  liked  to  go  round  and 
see  the  world.  "  Married  ?  "  No ;  a  man 
who  didn't  live  anywhere  had  no  business 
with  a  wife  and  children.  Still  he  was  not 
oblivious  to  feminine  charms,  as  became  evi- 
dent when  we  passed  a  pair  of  dusky  beau- 
ties.     "  Oh,  I  will  look  at  'em,"  he  said, 


A  DAY\S  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES      5 

with  the  tone  of  a  man  who  had  broken  his 
full  share  of  hearts.  He  was  one  of  the 
fortunates  who  are  born  with  their  eyes 
open.  I  quizzed  him  about  birds.  Yes,  he 
had  noticed  them ;  he  had  been  hunting  a 
good  deal.  This  and  the  other  were  named, 
—  partridges,  pheasants,  doves,  meadow 
larks,  chewinks,  chats,  night-hawks.  Yes, 
he  knew  them ;  if  not  by  the  names  I  called 
them  by,  then  from  my  descriptions,  to 
which  in  most  cases  he  proceeded  to  add 
some  convincing  touches  of  his  own.  The 
chat  he  did  not  recognize  under  that  title, 
but  when  I  tried  to  hit  off  some  of  the  bird's 
odd  characteristics  he  began  to  laugh.  "  Oh 
yes,  sir,  I  know  that  fellow."  As  for  whip- 
poorwills,  the  whole  country  was  full  of 
them.  "You  can't  hear  your  ears  for  'em 
at  night,"  he  declared.  "  No,  sir,  you  can't 
hear  your  ears."  With  all  the  rest  he  was 
a  "silverite."  At  the  end  of  the  drive  I 
handed  him  a  dollar  bill,  one  of  Uncle  Sam's 
handsomest,  as  it  happened,  fresh  from  the 
bank.  He  looked  at  it  dubiously,  fumbled 
it  a  moment,  and  passed  it  back.  "Say, 
boss,"  he  said,  "  can't  you  give  me  a  silver 
dollar?      It   might   rain."      In   a   land  of 


6  NORTH  CAROLINA 

thunder-showers  and  thin  clothing,  he  meant 
to  say,  what  we  need  is  an  insoluble  cur- 
rency. That,  as  such  things  go,  was  a  pretty 
substantial  argument  for  "free  silver,"  or 
so  it  seemed  to  me ;  and  I  spoke  of  it,  ac- 
cordingly, a  week  or  two  afterward,  to  an 
advocate  of  the  "white  metal."  He  was 
impressed  by  it  just  as  I  had  been,  and 
begged  me  to  make  use  of  the  argument 
when  I  got  back  to  Boston;  as  I  now  do, 
with  all  cheerfulness,  feeling  that,  whatever 
a  man's  own  opinions  may  be,  he  is  bound 
to  keep  an  ear  open  for  the  best  that  can  be 
put  forward  against  them.  At  the  same 
time,  I  am  constrained  to  add  that  I  have 
never  been  quite  sure  whether  my  driver's 
plea  was  anything  better  than  a  polite  sub- 
terfuge. It  would  have  been  nothing  won- 
derful, surely,  if  he  had  questioned  the  genu- 
ineness of  a  kind  of  money  to  which  he  was 
so  little  accustomed.  Small  bills  —  "  ones 
and  twos,"  as  we  familiarly  call  them  — 
have  but  a  limited  circulation  at  the  South, 
as  all  travelers  must  have  noticed.  On  my 
present  trip,  for  instance,  I  bought  a  railway 
ticket  at  a  rural  station,  and  proffered  the 
agent  a  two-dollar  bill.     He  gave  it  a  glance 


A  DAY'S  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES      7 

of  surprise,  looked  at  me,  —  "  Ah,  a  North- 
ern man,"  so  I  read  his  thoughts, —  and  in- 
continently slipped  the  bill  into  his  pocket. 
A  rarity  like  that  was  not  for  the  cash  drawer 
and  the  daily  course  of  business.  I  might 
almost  as  well  have  given  him  a  two-dollar 
gold  coin ;  like  the  pious  heroine  of  a  Sun- 
day-school story  I  was  reading  the  other 
day,  who  dropped  into  the  contribution-box 
a  "  fifty-dollar  gold  piece  "  ! 

The  rain,  concerning  whose  destructive 
power  my  colored  boy  had  been  so  appre- 
hensive, very  soon  set  in,  and  left  me  nothing 
to  do  but  to  make  the  best  of  an  afternoon 
upon  the  hotel  piazza,  with  its  outlook  up 
and  down  the  village  street,  and  its  gossip 
and  politics.  As  to  the  latter  I  played  the 
part  of  listener,  in  spite  of  sundry  courteous 
attempts  to  draw  me  out.  Tillman  and  the 
silver  question  were  discussed  with  a  wel- 
come coolness  of  spirit,  while  I  looked  at  an 
occasional  passing  horseman  (it  is  the  one 
advantage  of  poor  roads  that  they  keep  an 
entire  community  in  the  saddle),  or  admired 
the  evolutions  of  the  chimney  swifts  and 
the  martins.  Roses  and  honeysuckles  would 
have  made  the  dooryards  beautiful,  had  that 


8  NORTH  CAROLINA 

result  fallen  within  the  bounds  of  possibil- 
ity, and  a  chinaberry-tree,  full  of  purple 
blossoms,  was  not  only  a  thing  of  beauty  in 
itself,  but  to  me  was  also  a  sweet  remem- 
brancer of  Florida. 

My  only  other  recollection  of  the  after- 
noon seems  almost  too  trivial  for  record. 
Yet  who  knows  ?  What  has  interested  one 
man  may  perchance  do  as  much  for  another. 
In  the  midst  of  the  talk,  a  man  with  an  axe 
came  along,  and  said  to  the  proprietor  of  the 
hotel,  "  Have  you  got  a  grinding-rock  here?  " 
"  Yes,  round  behind  the  house,"  was  the  an- 
swer. "  Grinding-rock  "  !  —  that  was  a  new 
name  for  my  old  back-breaking  acquaintance 
of  the  haying  season,  and  good  as  it  was 
new.  I  adopted  it  on  the  instant.  With  its 
rasping,  gritty  sound,  it  seemed  a  plain  case 
of  onomatopoetic  justice.  No  more  "  grind- 
stone "  for  me,  if  I  live  a  thousand  years. 

I  mentioned  the  subject  some  days  after- 
ward to  a  citizen  of  Highlands.  "  Oh  yes," 
he  answered,  "  they  always  say  '  rock ; '  not 
only  '  grinding  -  rock,'  but  '  whet  -  rock.'  " 
Then  he  added  something  that  pleased  me 
still  more.  He  had  just  been  to  the  county 
seat  as  a  member  of  the  grand  jury,  and 


A   DATS  DBIVE  IN   THREE  STATES      U 

among  the  cases  before  him  and  his  col- 
leagues was  one  of  alleged  assault  by  "  rock- 
ing," that  word  being  used  in  the  legal 
document,  whatever  its  name,  in  which  the 
complaint  was  set  forth.  This  point  was  of 
special  interest  to  me,  I  say.  In  my  boy- 
hood, which,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  not  ex- 
ceptionally belligerent,  it  was  an  every-day 
occurrence  to  "  fire  rocks  "  at  an  enemy,  or 
"  rock  him  ;  "  whereas  an  editorial  brother, 
himself  of  New  England  birth,  with  whom 
it  is  often  my  privilege  to  compare  notes, 
affirms  that  he  never  heard  such  expressions, 
though  he  has  sometimes  met  with  them  — 
and  presumably  corrected  them  —  in  manu- 
script stories.  It  was  no  small  satisfaction 
to  find  this  bit  of  my  own  Massachusetts  — 
Old  Colony  —  dialect  still  surviving,  and  in 
common  use,  in  the  Carolinas. 

Walhalla  itself,  with  an  elevation  of  a 
thousand  feet,  and  mountains  visible  not  far 
off,  lays  some  not  unnatural  claims  to  a 
"climate,"  and  in  a  small  way  is  a  health 
resort,  I  believe,  in  spite  of  its  rather  sinis- 
ter name,  both  summer  and  winter.  To  me, 
indeed,  it  seemed  a  place  to  stop  at  rather 
than  to  stay  in ;  but,  as  the  reader  knows,  I 


10  NOBTH  CAROLINA 

saw  it  only  from  the  main  street  on  a  muddy 
afternoon,  and  was  likely  to  do  it  but  foul- 
weather  justice.  Even  its  merits  as  a  neces- 
sary lodging  station  were  lightly  appreciated, 
till  on  my  return  I  made  my  exit  from  the 
mountains  on  the  other  side  of  them,  and 
put  up  for  the  night  in  another  village,  and 
especially  at  another  hotel.  Compared  with 
that,  Walhalla  was,  in  deed  as  in  name,  a 
kind  of  heavenly  place.  Is  it  well,  or  not, 
that  what  is  worse  makes  us  half  contented 
with  what  is  simply  bad  ?  I  was  more  than 
ready,  at  any  rate,  when  a  Walhalla  boy 
brought  me  word  the  next  morning,  "  Your 
carriage  has  done  come."  ^ 

The  sky  was  fair,  and  shortly  after  seven 

1  "  Do  come  "  and  "  did  come  "  are  proper  enough ; 
why  not ' '  done  come  "  ?  And  in  point  of  fact,  this  com- 
mon Southern  use  of  "  done  "  with  the  past  participle  has 
its  warrant  in  at  least  two  lines  of  Chaucer :  in  The 
Knightes  Tale  (1055) :  — 

"  Hath  Theseus  doon  wrought  in  noble  wise," 
and  in  The  Tale  of  the  Man  of  Lawe  (171) :  — 

"  Thise  marchants  ban  doon  fraught  her  shippes  newe." 
If  a  ship  is  "  done  loaded,"  why  may  not  a  carriage  have 
"  done  come  "  ?  Idiom  is  long-lived.  As  Lowell  said 
of  the  Yankee  vernacular,  so  doubtless  may  we  say  of 
the  Carolinian,  that  it  "  often  has  antiquity  and  very 
respectable  literary  authority  on  its  side." 


A  DAY'S  DBIVE  IN   THREE  STATES     11 

o'clock  we  were  on  the  road,  the  driver  and 
his  one  passenger,  in  a  heavy  three-seated 
mountain  wagon,  locally  known  as  a  "  hack," 
drawn  by  two  horses.  Our  destination  was 
said  to  be  thirty-two  miles  distant,  —  so 
much  I  knew ;  but  the  figures  had  given  me 
little  idea  of  the  length  of  the  journey.  It 
was  an  agreeable  surprise,  also,  when  the 
driver  informed  me  that  we  were  not  only 
going  from  South  Carolina  to  North  Caro- 
lina, but  on  the  way  were  to  spend  some 
hours  in  Georgia,  the  mountainous  north- 
eastern corner  of  that  State  being  wedged 
in  between  the  two  Carolinas.  In  short,  to 
accomplish  our  ascent  of  twenty-eight  hun- 
dred feet  we  were  out  for  a  day's  ride  in 
three  States  and  over  four  mountains,  —  an 
exhilarating  prospect  in  that  perfect  May 
weather. 

My  recollections  of  the  day  run  together, 
as  it  were,  till  the  route,  as  memory  tries  to 
picture  it  forth,  turns  all  to  one  hopeless 
blur :  an  interminable  alternation  of  ups  and 
downs,  largely  over  shaded  forest  roads,  but 
with  occasional  sunny  stretches,  especially, 
as  it  seemed,  whenever  I  essayed  to  take  the 
cramp  out  of  my  legs  by  a  half-hour's  climb 


12  NORTH  CAROLINA 

on  foot.  A  turn  or  two  in  the  road,  and  we 
had  left  the  village  behind  us,  and  then, 
almost  before  I  knew  it,  we  were  among  the 
hills:  now  aloft  on  the  shoulder  of  one  of 
them,  with  innumerable  mountains  crowding 
the  horizon  ;  now  shut  in  some  narrow,  wind- 
ing valley,  our  "  distance  and  horizon  gone,'* 
with  a  bird  singing  from  the  bushes,  and 
likely  enough  a  stream  playing  hide-and-seek 
behind  a  tangle  of  rhododendron  and  laurel. 
Wild  as  the  country  was,  we  never  traveled 
many  miles  without  coming  in  sight  of  a 
building  of  some  kind  :  a  rude  mill,  it  might 
be,  or  more  probably  a  cabin.  Once  at  least, 
in  a  very  wilderness  of  a  place,  we  passed  a 
schoolhouse;  as  to  which  it  puzzled  me  to 
guess,  first  where  the  pupils  came  from,  and 
then  how  they  got  light  to  read  by,  unless, 
happy  children,  they  took  their  books  out  of 
doors  and  studied  their  lessons  under  the 
trees,  and  so  went  to  school  with  the  birds. 

Little  by  little  —  very  little  —  we  con- 
tinued to  ascend,  gaining  something  more 
than  we  lost  as  the  road  seesawed  from  valley 
to  hill,  and  from  hill  to  valley.  So  it  finally 
appeared,  I  mean  to  say ;  the  changes  in  the 
vegetation  serving  eventually  to  establish  a 


A  BAT&  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES     13 

point  which  for  hours  together  had  been 
mainly  an  article  of  faith.  As  to  another 
point,  the  four  mountains  over  which  our 
course  was  supposed  to  run,  that  remains  a 
question  of  faith  to  this  day.  There  might 
have  been  two,  or  thrice  two,  for  aught  I 
could  tell.  The  road  avoided  summits,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and,  if  I  can  make  myself 
understood,  we  were  so  lost  in  the  hills  that 
we  could  not  see  them.  When  we  had  left 
one  and  had  come  to  another,  I  knew  it  only 
as  the  driver  told  me.  So  far  as  any  sense 
of  upward  progress  was  concerned,  we  might 
almost  as  well  have  been  marking  time. 

"  What  mountain  are  we  on  now  ?  "  This 
was  a  stock  question  with  me. 

"  Stumphouse." 

"  And  why  is  it  called  Stumphouse  ?  " 

"  Because  a  good  many  years  ago  a  man 
lived  here  in  a  hollow  stump." 

"  And  in  what  State  are  we  ?  " 

«  South  Car'lina." 

"  But  are  n't  we  near  the  North  Carolina 
line?" 

"  No,  sir ;  we  have  to  go  through  Georgy 
first." 

Till  now  I  had  been  quite  unaware  of 


14  NOBTH  CAROLINA 

what  I  may  call  the  interstate  character  of 
our  day's  ride. 

"Indeed!  And  how  soon  shall  we  get 
into  Georgia?" 

"  When  we  cross  the  Chattoogy  River." 

"The  Chattooga?  What  is  that?  A 
branch  of  the  Savannah?" 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  How  do  you  spell  it  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know,  sir." 

My  driver  had  certain  verbal  niceties  of 
his  own  ;  he  never  said  "  don't."  As  for  his 
inability  to  spell "  Chattooga,"  or  "  Chatuga," 
he  was  little  to  be  blamed  for  that.  The 
atlas-makers  are  no  better  off. 

By  and  by  we  forded  a  sizeable  stream. 

"Now,  then,  we  are  crossing  into  Geor- 
gia ?  "  I  began  again. 

"  No,  sir ;  this  is  not  the  Chattoogy,  but 
one  of  its  prongs." 

Finally,  at  high  noon,  we  dropped  into  a 
hot  and  breezeless  valley,  with  the  Chattooga 
running  through  it  in  the  sun.     Here  was  a 

farm.     Mr. lived  here,  and  kept  a  kind 

of  half-way  house  for  travelers.  But  we 
would  not  stop  at  it,  the  driver  said,  if  it 
was  all  the  same  to  me.     There  was  another 


A  DAY'S  DRIVE  IN   THESE  STATES     15 

house  just  across  the  river.  He  had  given 
the  people  notice  of  our  coming,  on  his  way 
down  the  day  before,  and  the  woman  would 
have  dinner  ready  for  me.  Both  houses  were 
very  nice  places  to  eat  at,  he  added  for  my 
encouragement.  So  it  happened  that  I  break- 
fasted in  South  Carolina,  dined  in  Georgia, 
and  supped  in  North  Carolina.  The  dinner, 
to  which  I  sat  down  alone,  was  bountiful 
after  its  kind.  If  the  table  did  not  "  groan," 
it  must  have  been  because  it  was  ignorant 
of  a  table's  duty ;  and  if  I  did  not  make  a 
feast,  let  the  failure  be  laid  to  the  idiosyn- 
crasy of  a  man  who  once  cut  short  his  stay 
at  one  of  the  most  inviting  places  in  all  Vir- 
ginia because  he  was  pampered  monotonously 
for  five  consecutive  meals  with  nothing  but 
fried  ham,  fried  eggs,  and  soda  biscuits.  "  It 
is  never  too  late  to  give  up  our  prejudices," 
says  Thoreau,  in  one  of  his  lofty  moods. 
Wisdom  uttered  in  that  tone  is  not  to  be 
disputed ;  but  if  it  is  never  "too  late,"  I  for 
one  have  sometimes  found  it  too  early.  My 
bill  of  fare  here  in  Georgia  was  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  three  Southern  staples  just 
now  enumerated  (let  so  much  be  said  in 
simple  justice),  but  they  held  the  place  of 


16  NORTH  CAROLINA 

honor,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  for  the 
rest  —  well,  there  is  a  kind  of  variety  that  is 
only  another  kind  of  sameness.  "  An  excel- 
lent dinner,"  said  a  facetious  fellow-traveler 
of  mine  on  a  similar  occasion,  as,  knife  and 
fork  in  hand,  he  hovered  doubtfully  over  the 
table,  and,  like  Emerson's  snowflake,  *'  seemed 
nowhere  to  alight,"  —  "a  most  excellent  din- 
ner ;  but  then,  you  see,  it  is  nothing  but  ham 
and  eggs  with  variations."  If  this  sounds 
like  grumbling,  it  is  only  against  a  "  system," 
as  we  say  in  these  days,  not  against  a  person. 
My  generous  hostess  had  spared  no  pains, 
and  from  any  point  of  view  had  given  me 
far  more  than  my  money's  worth ;  stinting 
herself  only  when  it  came  to  setting  a  price 
upon  her  bounty.  That  unavoidable  business 
she  approached,  in  response  to  the  usual 
overtures  on  my  part,  with  all  manner  of 
delicate  indirections,  holding  back  the  deci- 
sive word  till  the  very  last  moment,  as  if  her 
tongue  could  not  bring  itself  to  utter  a  figure 
so  extortionate.  The  truth  was,  she  said, 
she  had  made  nothing  by  giving  dinners  the 
year  previous,  and  so  felt  obliged  to  charge 
five  cents  more  the  present  season  !  ^ 

^  If  I  seem  to  have  said  too  much  about  the  vulgar 


A  DATS  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES     17 

The  noon  hour  brought  a  sudden  change 
in  the  day's  programme.  All  the  forenoon 
I  had  been  asking  questions,  presuming  upon 
my  double  right  as  a  traveler  and  a  Yankee  ; 
now  I  was  to  take  my  turn  in  the  witness- 
box.  My  landlady's  brother  sat  on  the 
veranda  mending  a  fishing-tackle,  and  we 
had  hardly  passed  the  time  of  day  before  it 
became  apparent  that  he  possessed  one  of 
nature's  best  intellectual  gifts,  an  appetite 
for  knowledge.  With  admirable  civility, 
yet  with  no  waste  of  time  or  breath,  he  went 
about  his  work,  and  long  before  dinner  was 
announced  I  had  given  him  my  name,  my 
residence  (my  age,  perhaps,  but  here  recol- 
lection becomes  hazy),  my  occupation,  the 

question  of  something  to  eat,  let  it  be  my  apology  that 
for  a  Northern  traveler  in  the  rural  South  the  food  ques- 
tion is  nothing  less  than  the  health  question.  A  few 
years  ago,  two  Boston  ornithologists,  who  had  undertaken 
an  extensive  tour  among  the  North  Carolina  mountains, 
returned  before  the  time.  Sickness  had  driven  them 
home,  it  turned  out ;  and  when  they  came  to  publish  the 
result  of  their  investigations,  they  finished  their  narrative 
by  saying,  ' '  Few  Northern  digestions  could  accomplish 
the  feat  of  properly  nourishing  a  man  on  native  fare." 
On  my  present  trip,  a  resident  physician  assured  me  that 
the  native  mountaineers,  living  mostly  out  of  doors  and 
in  one  of  the  best  of  climates,  are  almost  without  excep- 
tion dyspeptics. 


18  NORTH  CAROLINA 

object  of  my  present  journey  and  its  probable 
duration,  some  account  of  my  previous  visits 
South,  my  notion  of  New  England  weather, 
my  impressions  of  Washington,  especially  of 
the  height  of  the  Washington  monument  as 
compared  with  other  similar  structures  (a 
question  of  peculiar  moment  to  him,  for 
some  reason  now  past  recall),  and  Heaven 
knows  what  else ;  while  on  a  thousand  or 
two  of  other  topics  I  had  confessed  ignorance. 
I  had  never  been  to  Chautauqua ;  that  was 
perhaps  my  examiner's  most  serious  disap- 
pointment. He  was  at  present  engaged  on 
a  Chautauquan  course  of  reading,  as  it  ap- 
peared, —  the  best  course  of  reading  that  he 
had  ever  seen,  he  was  inclined  to  think. 
Here  again  he  had  me  playing  second  fiddle, 
or  rather  no  fiddle  at  all. 

His  was  a  wholesome  catholicity  of  mind, 
but  it  pleased  me  to  notice  that  he  too  had 
felt  the  touch  of  the  modern  spirit,  and  was 
something  of  a  specialist.  Geography,  or 
perhaps  I  should  say  climatology,  seemed  to 
lie  uppermost  in  his  thoughts.  Once,  I  re- 
member, he  brought  out  a  ponderous  atlas 
of  the  world,  a  book  of  really  astonishing 
proportions  when  the  size  of  the  house  was 


A  DAY'S  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES     19 

taken  into  account,  though  it  may  not  have 
been  absohitely  necessary  for  him  to  bring 
it  out  of  doors  in  order  to  open  it.  On  the 
subject  of  comparative  climatology,  be  it  said 
without  reserve,  it  did  not  take  him  long  to 
come  to  the  end  of  my  resources.  It  is  pos- 
sible, of  course,  that  his  own  concern  about 
it  was  but  temporary,  —  the  result  of  his 
before-mentioned  course  of  reading.  There 
is  no  better  —  nor  better  understood —  rule 
for  conversation  than  to  choose  the  subject 
of  the  book  you  happen  to  have  had  last  in 
hand.  Two  to  one  the  other  man  will  know 
less  about  it  than  you  do.  Then  you  are  in 
clover.  But  should  it  turn  out  that  he  is  at 
home  where  you  have  but  recently  peeped  in 
at  the  window,  and  so  is  bound  to  have  you 
at  a  disadvantage,  you  have  only  to  be  be- 
forehand with  him  by  acknowledging  with 
becoming  modesty  that  you  really  know  no- 
thing about  the  matter,  but  happen  to  have 
just  been  looking  over  with  some  interest 
Mr.  So-and-So's  recent  book.  In  other 
words,  you  may  pass  for  a  special  student 
or  a  discursive  reader,  honorable  characters 
both  of  them,  according  as  the  way  opens. 
I  am  not  saying  that  my  noonday  acquain- 


20  NORTH  CAROLINA 

tance  had  practiced  any  such  stratagem. 
His  attitude  throughout  was  that  of  a  learner ; 
nor  did  he  set  himself  to  shine  even  in  that 
humble  capacity,  as  one  may  easily  do  (and 
there  are  few  safer  methods)  in  this  day  of 
multifarious  discovery,  when  the  ability  to 
ask  intelligent  questions  has  become  of  itseK 
a  badge  of  scholarship.  His  inquiries  fol- 
lowed one  another  with  perfect  naturalness 
and  simplicity ;  he  simply  wanted  to  know. 
As  for  the  more  strictly  personal  among 
them,  they  were  only  such  as  the  most  con- 
ventional of  us  instinctively  feel  like  asking. 
"  As  soon  as  a  stranger  is  introduced  into  any 
company,"  says  Emerson,  "  one  of  the  first 
questions  which  all  wish  to  have  answered 
is,  *How  does  that  man  get  his  living?*" 
There  was  no  thought  of  taking  offense.  On 
the  contrary,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  be  angled 
for  by  so  true  an  artist.  If  any  newspaper 
should  be  in  want  of  an  "  interviewer,"  —  a 
remote  contingency  so  far  as  any  newspaper 
that  I  know  anything  about  is  concerned,  — 
I  could  recommend  a  likely  hand.  A  candi- 
date for  the  presidency  might  balk  him,  but 
nobody  else.  My  own  conversation  with  him 
is  still  an  agreeable  memory ;  a  man's  mind 


A  DATS  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES      21 

is  like  a  well,  all  the  better  for  being  once  in 
a  while  pumped  dry.  And  yet,  while  I  speak 
of  him  in  this  tone  of  sincere  appreciation, 
it  must  be  acknowledged  that  in  one  respect 
he  did  me  an  ill  turn.  He  robbed  me  of  an 
illusion.  The  Yankee  is  second  where  I  had 
supposed  him  an  undisputed  first. 

Though  we  were  at  the  half-way  house,  and 
in  fact  had  made  more  than  half  of  our  day's 
journey,  the  valley  of  the  Chattooga  at  this 
point  lay  so  warmly  in  the  sun  that  the  as- 
pect of  things  remained  decidedly  southern. 
Roses  and  snowballs  were  in  bloom  in  the 
dooryard,  and  as  I  came  out  from  dinner  a 
blue-gray  gnatcatcher,  the  only  one  seen  on 
my  entire  trip,  was  complaining  from  a  per- 
simmon-tree beside  the  gate.  My  attention 
to  it,  and  to  sundry  other  birds  of  the  smaller 
sorts,  —  a  blue  golden- winged  warbler,  for 
example,  —  was  matter  of  surprise  to  the 
men  of  the  house,  both  of  whom  were  now 
on  the  veranda.  My  seeker  after  knowledge, 
indeed,  asked  me  plainly,  but  not  without  a 
word  of  apology,  what  object  I  had  in  view 
in  such  studies ;  in  short,  —  when  I  stumbled 
a  bit  in  my  explanation,  —  whether  there 
was  "any  money  in  them."     In  that  form 


22  NORTH  CAROLINA 

the  question  presented  less  difficulty,  and  in 
my  turn  I  asked  him  and  his  brother-in-law 
how  often  they  were  accustomed  to  see  ravens 
thereabout.  Their  reply  was  little  to  the 
comfort  of  an  enthusiast  who  had  come  a 
thousand  miles,  more  or  less,  with  ravens  in 
his  eye.  Neither  of  them  had  seen  one  in 
the  last  five  years.  Something  had  happened 
to  the  birds,  they  could  not  say  what.  For- 
merly it  was  nothing  uncommon  to  notice 
one  or  two  flying  over.  Alas,  this  was  not 
the  first  time  it  had  been  borne  in  upon  me 
that,  ornithologically,  my  portion  was  among 
the  belated. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  it  hitherto,  but 
I  had  not  driven  five  or  six  hours  through 
strange  woods  and  into  the  midst  of  strange 
hills  without  an  ear  open  for  bird  notes. 
Even  the  rumbling  of  the  heavy  wagon  and 
the  uneasy  creaking  of  the  harness  could  not 
drown  such  music  altogether,  and  once  in  a 
while,  as  I  have  said,  I  spelled  myself  on 
foot.  At  short  intervals,  too,  when  we  came 
to  some  promising  spot,  —  a  swampy  thicket, 
perhaps,  or  a  patch  of  evergreens,  —  I  called 
a  halt  to  listen ;  the  driver  making  no  ob- 
jection, and  the  horses  less  than  none.     The 


A  DAY'S  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES     23 

voices,  to  my  regret  rather  than  to  my  sur- 
prise, were  every  one  familiar,  and  the  single 
unexpected  thing  about  it  all  was  the  dearth 
of  northern  species.  The  date  was  May  6, 
and  the  woods  might  properly  enough  have 
been  alive  with  homeward-bound  migrants ; 
but  the  only  bird  that  I  could  positively  rank 
under  that  head  was  a  Swainson  thrush,  — 
a  free-hearted  singer,  whose  cheery  White 
Mountain  tune  I  never  hear  at  the  South 
without  an  inward  refreshment.  From  the 
evergreens,  none  too  common,  and  mostly 
too  far  from  the  road,  came  the  voices  of  a 
pine  warbler  and  one  or  two  black-throated 
greens  ;  and  once,  as  we  skirted  a  bushy  hill- 
side, I  caught  the  sliding  ditty  of  a  prairie 
warbler.  Here,  too,  I  think  it  was  that  I 
heard  the  distinctive,  loquacious  call  of  a 
summer  tanager,  —  four  happy  chances,  as 
but  for  them,  and  the  single  gnatcatcher  by 
the  half  way  house  gate,  my  vacation  bird 
list  would  have  been  shorter  by  five  species. 
After  all,  the  principal  ornithological 
event  of  the  forenoon  was,  not  the  singing 
of  the  Swainson  thrush,  but  the  discovery  of 
a  humming-bird's  nest.  This  happened  on 
the  side  of  Stumphouse  Mountain.     I  had 


24  NOBTH  CAROLINA 

taken  a  short  cut  by  myself,  and  had  come 
out  of  the  woods  into  the  road  again  some 
distance  ahead  of  the  wagon,  when  suddenly 
I  heard  the  buzz  and  squeak  of  a  hummer, 
and,  glancing  upward,  put  my  eye  instantly 
upon  the  nest,  which  might  have  been  two 
thirds  done  from  its  appearance,  and  then 
upon  its  owner,  whose  reiterated  squeakings, 
I  have  no  doubt,  expressed  her  annoyance 
at  my  intrusion.  In  truth,  both  owners 
were  present,  and  in  that  lay  the  exceptional 
interest  of  the  story. 

Some  years  ago  I  had  proved,  as  I 
thought,  that  the  male  ruby-throat  habitu- 
ally takes  no  part  in  the  hatching  and  rear- 
ing of  its  young,  and,  for  that  matter,  is 
never  to  be  seen  about  the  nest  in  the  five 
or  six  weeks  during  which  that  most  labo- 
rious and  nerve-trying  work  is  going  on. 
As  to  why  this  should  be  I  could  only 
confess  ignorance ;  and  subsequent  observa- 
tions, both  by  myself  and  by  others,^  while 
confirming  the  fact  of  the  male's  absence, 
had  done  nothing  to  bring  to  light  the  rea- 
son for  it.     Is  the  female  herself  responsible 

^  See  especially  an  article  by  Mrs.  Olive  Thorne  Miller 
in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  for  June,  1896. 


A  DAY'S  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES     25 

for  such  a  state  of  things  ?  I  should  hate 
to  believe,  as  I  have  heard  it  maintained, 
that  female  birds  in  general  cherish  little  or 
no  real  affection  for  their  mates,  regarding 
them  simply  as  necessities  of  the  hour ;  but 
it  is  certain  that  widows  among  them  waste 
no  time  in  mourning,  and  it  appears  to  me 
likely  enough,  if  I  am  to  say  what  I  think, 
that  the  lady  hummer,  a  fussy  and  capable 
body  (we  all  know  the  human  type),  having 
her  nest  done  and  the  eggs  laid,  prefers  her 
mate's  room  to  his  company,  and  gives  him 
his  walking  ticket. 

So  much  for  a  bit  of  half -serious  specula- 
tion. The  interest  of  the  nest  found  here 
on  Stumphouse  Mountain  lay,  as  I  have 
said,  in  the  fact  that  it  was  unfinished,  and 
the  male  owner  of  it  —  if  he  is  to  be  called 
an  owner  —  was  still  present.  Whether  he 
was  actually  assisting  in  the  construction  of 
the  family  house,  I  am  unable  to  tell.  For 
the  few  minutes  that  I  remained  the  female 
alone  entered  it,  doing  something  or  other 
to  the  wall  or  rim,  and  then  flying  away. 
With  so  long  a  journey  before  us  there  was 
no  tarrying  for  further  investigations,  glad 
as  I  should  have  been  to  see  the  ruby-throat 


26  NORTH  CAROLINA 

for  once  conducting  himself  with  something 
like  Christian  propriety.  For  to-day,  at  all 
events,  he  was  neither  a  deserter  nor  an 
exile. 

We  rested  for  an  hour  or  more  at  the 
half-way  house,  and  then  resumed  our  jour- 
ney :  the  morning  story  over  again,  —  up- 
ward and  downward  and  roundabout,  with 
woods  and  hills  everywhere,  and  two  moun- 
tains still  to  put  behind  us.  We  should  be 
in  Highlands  before  dark,  the  driver  said ; 
but  one  contingepcy  had  been  left  out  of  his 
calculation.  When  we  had  been  under  way 
an  hour,  or  some  such  matter,  he  began  to 
worry  about  one  of  the  horses.  My  own 
eyes  had  been  occupied  elsewhere,  but  now 
it  was  plain  enough,  my  attention  having 
been  called  to  it,  that  "  Doc "  was  leaving 
his  mate  to  do  the  work.  And  Doc  was 
never  known  to  play  the  shirk,  the  driver 
said,  with  a  jealousy  for  his  favorite's  repu- 
tation pleasant  to  see  and  honorable  to  both 
parties.  The  poor  fellow  must  be  sick. 
"Didn't  he  eat  his  dinner?"  I  asked. 
"  Yes ;  there  was  no  sign  of  anything  wrong 
at  that  time."  Then  it  could  be  no  very 
killing  matter,  I  said  to  myself ;  a  touch  of 


A  DAY'S  DRIVE  IN   THREE  STATES      27 

laziness,  probably ;  who  could  blame  him  ? 
—  and  I  continued  to  enjoy  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  the  forest.  But  my  seatmate, 
better  experienced  and  more  charitable,  was 
not  to  be  misled.  Little  by  little  his  anxi- 
ety increased,  till  he  could  do  nothing  but 
talk  about  it  (so  it  happened  that  we  crossed 
the  North  Carolina  line,  and  I  was  none  the 
wiser)  ;  and  before  long  it  became  evident, 
even  to  me,  that  whatever  ailed  the  horse, 
sickness,  laziness,  discouragement,  or  ex- 
haustion, he  must  be  carefully  humored,  or 
we  should  find  ourselves  stranded  for  the 
night  on  a  lonesome  mountain  road.  Slower 
and  slower  we  went,  —  both  men  on  foot,  of 
course,  up  all  the  ascents,  —  and  worse  and 
worse  grew  Doc's  behavior.  I  was  sorry  for 
him,  and  sorrier  still  for  the  driver,  who  was 
thinking  not  only  of  his  horse  and  his  pas- 
senger, but  of  himself  and  his  own  standing 
with  the  owner  of  the  team.  He  was  sure  it 
was  none  of  his  fault,  he  kept  protesting ; 
nothing  of  the  kind  had  ever  happened  to 
him  before.  Finally,  seeing  him  so  misera- 
bly depressed  (for  the  time  being  every  mis- 
fortune is  as  bad  as  it  looks),  so  quite  at  the 
end  of  his  wit,  and  almost  at  the  end  of  his 


28  NORTH  CAROLINA 

courage,  I  said,  "Why  not  take  advice  at 
the  next  house  we  come  to  ?  Two  heads  are 
better  than  one."  That  was  a  word  in  sea- 
son. To  take  advice  would  be  a  kind  of 
division  of  responsibility.  It  is  what  doc- 
tors do  when  the  patient  is  dying  on  their 
hands.     The  man  brightened  at  once. 

A  mile  or  two  more  of  halting  and  painful 
progress,  then,  and  we  approached  a  clear- 
ing, on  the  farther  side  of  which  two  men 
were  busy  with  a  plough.  The  driver  hailed 
one  of  them  by  name,  and  made  known  our 
difficulty.  Would  n't  he  please  come  to  the 
road  and  see  if  he  could  make  out  what  was 
the  matter  ?  He  responded  in  the  most 
neighborly  spirit  (he  would  have  been  a 
queer  farmer,  neighborly  or  not,  not  to  feel 
interested  in  a  question  about  a  horse)  ;  but 
after  looking  into  the  animal's  mouth,  and 
disclaiming  any  special  right  to  speak  in 
such  a  case,  he  could  only  say  that  he  saw 
no  sign  of  anything  worse  than  fatigue. 
Hadn't  the  horse  been  worked  hard  lately? 
Yes,  the  driver  answered,  he  had  been  in  the 
harness  pretty  steadily  for  some  time  past. 
At  this  I  put  in  my  oar.  Could  n't  another 
horse  be  borrowed  somewhere,  and  the  tired 


A  DAY'S  DRIVE  IN  THREE  STATES     29 

one  left  to  rest  ?  —  a  suggestion,  I  need 
hardly  say,  that  squinted  hard  toward  the 
horse  in  sight  before  us  across  the  field. 
The  farmer  approved  of  the  idea ;  only 
where  was  the  horse  to  come  from  ?  Moun- 
tain farmers,  as  I  was  to  learn  afterward,  — 
and  a  strange  state  of  things  it  seemed  to  a 
pilgrim  from  Yankee  land,  —  are  mostly  too 
poor  to  support  a  horse,  or  even  a  mule. 
The  man  would  let  us  have  his,  of  course, 
but  it  was  a  young  thing  that  had  never 
been  hitched  up.  "But  I  tell  you,"  he 
broke  out,  after  a  minute's  reflection.  "  You 
know  So-and-So,  don't  you  ?  He  has  a  pair 
of  mules.  Perhaps  you  could  get  one  of 
them."  "  Good !  "  said  I,  and  we  drove  on 
a  mile  or  two  farther,  —  and  by  this  time  it 
was  driving,  —  till  we  came  to  a  cross-road, 
the  only  one  that  I  recall  on  the  whole  day's 
route,  though  there  must  have  been  others, 
I  suppose.  The  owner  of  the  mules  —  whose 
exceptional  opulence  should  have  kept  his 
name  remembered  —  lived  down  that  road  a 
piece,  the  driver  said.  If  I  would  stay  by 
the  wagon,  he  would  go  down  there,  and  be 
back  as  quickly  as  possible. 

He  was  gone  half  an  hour  or  more,  while 


30  NORTH  CAROLINA 

the  horses  browsed  upon  the  bushes  (if  a 
good  appetite  signified  anything,  Doc  was 
not  yet  on  his  way  to  the  buzzards),  and  I, 
after  listening  awhile  to  the  masterly  impro- 
visations of  a  brown  thrasher,  went  spying 
about  to  see  what  birds  might  be  hiding  in 
the  underbrush.  The  hobbyist,  say  what  you 
please  about  him,  is  a  lucky  fellow.  All 
sorts  of  untoward  accidents  bring  grist  to 
his  mill ;  and  so  it  was  this  time.  I  heard 
a  sparrow's  tseep^  and  soon  called  into  sight 
two  or  three  white-throats,  —  ordinary  birds 
enough,  but  of  value  here  as  being  the  only 
ones  found  on  the  whole  journey.  I  should 
have  missed  them  infallibly  but  for  Doc's 
misadventure. 

The  driver  returned  at  last,  and  with  him 
came  a  mountain  farmer,  —  another  good 
neighbor,  I  was  glad  to  see,  —  leading  a 
mule,  which  was  quickly  put  into  Doc's  har- 
ness. But  what  to  do  with  Doc?  "Leave 
him,"  said  I.  "  Lead  him  at  the  tail  of  the 
wagon,"  said  the  farmer ;  and  the  latter 
advice  prevailed.  And  very  good  advice  it 
seemed  till  we  came  to  the  first  steepish 
piece  of  road.  Then  the  horse  began  to 
hold  back.     "  Look  at  him  !  "  exclaimed  the 


A  DAY'S  DBIVE  IN   THREE  STATES      31 

driver  in  despairing  tones ;  and  all  our  trib- 
ulations were  begun  over  again. 

From  this  point  there  was  only  one  way 
of  getting  on,  and  that  at  a  snail's  pace  and 
with  continual  interruptions.  The  passenger 
took  the  reins,  and  the  driver  walked  behind 
with  his  whip,  and  so,  using  as  much  kind- 
ness as  might  be,  forced  the  unwilling  horse 
to  follow.  Even  that  cruel  resource  threat- 
ened before  long  to  fail  us ;  for  it  began  to 
look  as  if  the  unsteady  creature  would  drop 
in  his  tracks.  There  it  was,  as  I  now  sus- 
pect, that  he  played  his  best  card.  "  You 
must  leave  him  at  the  next  house,  if  there  is 
another,"  I  said.  "  Yes,  there  is  another," 
the  driver  answered,  "  and  only  one."  We 
came  to  it  presently,  —  a  cabin  far  below  us 
in  a  deep,  wood-encircled  valley,  out  of  which 
rose  pleasant  evening  sounds  of  a  banjo  and 
sing-ino;.  The  driver  lifted  his  voice,  and  a 
woman  appeared  upon  the  piazza.  The  man 
of  the  house  was  not  at  home,  she  said  ;  but 
the  driver  took  down  the  Virginia  fence,  and 
with  much  patient  coaxing  and  pulling  got 
the  horse  down  the  long,  steep  slope  and  into 
a  shed.  Then,  leaving  word  for  him  to  be 
fed  and  cared  for,  he  climbed  back  to  the 


32  NORTH  CAROLINA 

road,  and,  freed  at   last   from   our   incum- 
brance, we  quickened  our  pace. 

By  this  time  it  was  growing  dark.  Bird 
songs  had  ceased,  and  flowers  had  long  been 
invisible.  But  indeed,  for  the  greater  part 
of  the  afternoon,  we  had  been  so  taken  up 
with  working  our  passage  that  I  had  found 
small  opportunity  for  natural  history  com- 
ment. I  recall  a  lovely  rose-acacia  shrub, 
an  endless  display  of  pink  azalea,  —  set  off 
here  and  there  with  the  flat  snowy  clusters 
of  the  dogwood,  —  thickets  fringed  with 
drooping,  white,  sickly  sweet  Leucothoe  ra- 
cemes (which  at  the  time  I  mistook  for  some 
kind  of  Andromeda),  the  shouts  of  two 
pileated  woodpeckers,  —  always  remember- 
able,  —  a  hooded  warbler's  song  out  of  a 
rhododendron  thicket,  and  the  sight  of  two 
or  three  rough-winged  swallows.  These  last 
are  worth  mentioning,  because  in  connection 
with  them  there  came  out  the  astonishing 
fact  that  the  driver  did  not  know  what  I 
meant  by  swallows.  Apparently  he  had 
never  heard  the  word,  —  which  may  help 
readers  to  understand  what  a  scarcity  of 
these  airy  birds  there  is  in  all  that  Allegha- 
nian  country.     I  should  almost  as  soon  have 


A  DAY'S  DBIVE  IN   THREE  STATES     33 

expected  to  find  a  man  who  had  never  heard 
of  sparrows ! 

It  was  after  eight  o'clock  when  we  turned 
a  sharp  corner  in  the  road  and  saw  the  lights 
of  the  village  shining  through  the  forest 
ahead  of  us.  In  fifteen  minutes  more  I  was 
at  supper.  I  had  come  a  long  way  by  faith, 
—  faith  in  a  guidebook  star ;  and  my  faith 
had  not  been  vain. 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS 

*'  Every  pursuit  takes  its  reality  and  worth  from  the 
ardor  of  the  pursuer."  —  Keats. 

While  M.  Sylvestre  Bonnard,  Member 
of  the  Institute,  was  in  Sicily  prosecuting  his 
memorable  search  for  the  Alexandrian  manu- 
script of  the  Golden  Legend,  he  fell  in  un- 
expectedly with  his  old  acquaintances,  M. 
and  Mme.  Trepof,  collectors  of  match-boxes. 
Their  specialty,  as  may  be  supposed,  was 
not  exactly  to  M.  Bonnard's  liking.  Being 
a  scholar  and  an  antiquary,  he  would  rather 
have  seen  their  affections  bestowed  upon 
something  more  strictly  in  the  line  of  the 
fine  arts,  —  upon  antique  marbles,  perhaps, 
or  painted  vases ;  but  after  all,  he  said  to 
himself,  it  made  no  very  great  difference.  A 
collector  is  a  collector ;  and,  besides,  Mme. 
Trepof  always  spoke  of  their  pursuit  (she 
and  her  husband  were  traveling  round  the 
world  in  furtherance  of  it)  with  a  mixture  of 
enthusiasm  and  irony  that  made  the  whole 
business  truly  delightful. 


IN   QUEST  OF  HAVENS  35 

There  we  have  the  shrewd  collector's  se- 
cret. Whatever  the  objects  of  his  choice,  — 
postage -stamps,  first  editions,  butterflies,  or 
match-boxes,  —  they  become  for  the  time 
being  the  only  objects  worthy  of  a  man's  de- 
sire ;  but  in  talking  about  them,  as  of  course 
he  cannot  altogether  avoid  doing,  he  keeps 
in  mind  the  old  caution  about  the  pearls  and 
the  swine,  and  veils  his  seriousness  under  a 
happy  lightness  of  speech.  This  is  the  better 
course  for  all  concerned ;  and  something  like 
this  is  the  course  I  mean  to  adopt  in  narrat- 
ing my  raven-hunt  amid  the  North  Carolina 
mountains,  in  May,  1896.  The  work  was 
absorbing  enough  in  the  doing,  but  at  this 
distance,  and  out  of  consideration  for  the 
scholarly  reader,  —  who  may  feel  about  ra- 
vens as  M.  Bonnard  felt  about  match-boxes, 
—  I  hope  to  be  able  to  treat  it  with  a  be- 
coming degree  of  disinterestedness. 

My  collecting,  be  it  said  in  parenthesis, 
was  in  one  respect  quite  unlike  M.  Bonnard's 
and  Mme.  Trepof's.  It  was  concerned,  not 
with  the  objects  themselves,  but  with  the 
sight  of  them.  I  wanted,  not  cured  bird- 
skins  in  a  cabinet,  but  bits  of  first-hand 
knowledge  in  the  memory  and  the  notebook. 


36  NORTH  CAROLINA 

Here  at  Highlands,  this  little  hamlet  perched 
far  up  in  a  mountain  wilderness,  ravens  were 
common,  —  so  I  had  read  ;  and  as  I  purposed 
remaining  in  the  place  for  two  or  three 
weeks,  I  should  no  doubt  see  much  of  them, 
and  so  be  able  not  only  to  "  check  the  name," 
thus  adding  the  species  to  my  set  of  the 
Corvidce,  but  to  acquire  some  real  familiarity 
with  the  bird's  voice  and  ways.  Such  was 
my  dream  ;  but  certainty  began  to  fade  into 
uncertainty  from  the  day  I  drove  into  the 
mountains. 

One  of  my  first  village  calls,  after  a  day's 
ramble  in  the  country  round  about,  was  upon 
the  apothecary,  who  sat  sunning  himself  on 
the  stoop  in  front  of  his  shop,  —  a  cheerful 
example  of  how  idyllic  a  life  "  tending  store  " 
may  become  under  favorable  conditions.  To 
begin  with,  as  was  natural,  not  to  say  obliga- 
tory, between  a  newcomer  and  an  old  resi- 
dent, the  altitude  and  climate  of  the  place 
were  discussed.  Then,  as  soon  as  I  could  do 
so  with  politeness,  I  asked  about  ravens. 

"  Ravens  ?  "  said  the  doctor.  "  Ravens  ?  " 
Surely  the  inflection  was  not  encouraging. 
There  icere  no  ravens,  so  far  as  he  knew. 

"  But  the  books  say  they  are  common 
here." 


IN  QUEST  OF  HAVENS  37 

"Well,  I  am  perfectly  acquainted  with 
the  bird,  and  I  have  never  seen  one  in  High- 
lands in  all  my  twelve  years." 

This  might  have  seemed  to  end  the  matter, 
once  for  all ;  but  as  I  walked  away  I  remem- 
bered how  often  birds  had  proved  to  be  com- 
mon where  old  residents  had  never  seen 
them,  and  I  said  to  myself  that  the  present 
would  be  only  another  repetition  of  the 
familiar  story.     There  must  be  ravens  here. 

Mr. and  Mr. could  not  have  been 

mistaken. 

Let  that  be  as  it  might,  this  was  my  third 
day  in  the  mountains,  —  the  long  ride  from 
Walhalla  counting  for  one,  —  and  when  I 
returned  to  the  village,  at  noon,  my  first 
glimpse  of  a  raven  was  yet  to  be  had.  How- 
ever, a  wide-awake  farmer  assured  me  that, 
as  he  expressed  it,  something  must  be  the 

matter  with  Dr. 's  eyes.     He  had  seen 

ravens  many  a  time  ;  in  fact  he  had  seen  one 
within  two  days.  Of  course  he  had.  The 
affair  was  turning  out  just  as  I  had  foreseen. 
It  is  a  poor  naturalist  who  has  not  learned 
to  beware  of  negative  testimony.  The  apoth- 
ecary might  sit  on  his  stoop  and  shake  his 
head ;  before  many  days  I  would  shake  a 
black  wing  in  his  face. 


38  NOBTH  CABOLINA 

That  afternoon  I  took  another  road,  and 
though  I  found  no  ravens  I  brought  back  a 
lively  expectation.  I  had  stopped  beside  a 
pond,  and  was  pulling  down  a  small  halesia- 
tree  to  break  off  a  branch  of  its  snowy  bells, 
when  a  horseman  rode  up.  We  spoke  to 
each  other  (it  is  one  advantage  of  out-of-the- 
way  places  that  they  encourage  human  inter- 
course, as  poverty  helps  people  to  be  gener- 
ous), and  in  answer  to  my  inquiry  he  told 
me  that  the  tree  I  was  holding  down  was  a 
"  box  elder."  The  road  was  the  Hamburg 
road,  or  the  Shortoff  road,  —  one  name  be- 
ing for  a  town,  the  other  for  a  mountain,  — 
and  the  body  of  water  was  Stewart's  Pond. 
Then  I  came  to  the  point.  Did  he  often 
see  ravens  in  this  country  ?  He  answered 
promptly  in  the  affirmative  ;  and  when  I  told 

him  of  my  want  of  success  and  of  Dr. 's 

twelve-year  failure,  he  assured  me  that  if  I 
would  come  out  to  Turtlepond,  where  he 
lived,  I  could  see  them  easily  enough.  He 
saw  them  often,  and  just  now  they  were 
particularly  noisy ;  he  thought  they  must  be 
teaching  their  young  to  fly. 

How  far  was  it  to  Turtlepond  ?  I  asked. 
"  Seven  or  eight  miles."     And  the  road  ? 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  39 

Could  he  tell  me  how  to  get  there  ?  Oh,  yes  ; 
and  he  began.  But  I  was  soon  quite  lost. 
He  knew  the  way  too  well,  and  I  gave  over 
trying  to  follow  him,  saying  to  myself  that  I 
would  procure  directions,  when  the  time 
came,  from  some  one  in  the  village.  The 
man  was  very  neighborly  and  kind,  invited 
me  to  get  up  behind  him  and  ride,  gave  me 
his  name,  answered  all  my  questions,  and 
rode  away.  Here,  then,  were  ravens  with 
something  like  certainty  and  well  within 
reach  ("  ra-vens,"  my  new  acquaintance  had 
been  careful  to  say,  with  no  slurring  of  the 

second  vowel),  and,  Dr. to  the  contrary 

notwithstanding,  I  would  yet  see  them. 

The  next  morning,  with  a  luncheon  in  my 
pocket  and  a  minute  itinerary  in  my  note- 
book, I  set  out  for  Turtlepond.  Important 
things  must  be  attended  to  promptly.  "  You 
will  be  lucky  if  you  find  it,"  said  the  man 
who  had  laid  out  my  route,  by  way  of  a  god- 
speed ;  and  I  half  believed  him.  He  did  not 
add,  what  I  knew  was  on  his  tongue,  ''  You 
will  be  luckier  still  if  you  find  a  raven  ;  "  as 
to  that,  also,  he  was  welcome  to  his  opinion. 
Ravens  or  no  ravens,  I  meant  to  enjoy  my- 
self.    What  could  a  man  want  better  than 


40  NORTH  CAROLINA 

a  long,  unhurried  day  in  those  romantic 
mountain  roads,  with  a  bird  singing  from 
every  bush,  and  new  and  lovely  flowers  in- 
viting his  hand  at  every  turn  ?  With  fair 
weather  and  in  a  fair  country,  walking  is  its 
own  reward. 

To  put  the  town  behind  me  was  the  work 
of  a  few  minutes.  After  that  my  way  ran 
through  the  woods,  although  for  the  first 
half  of  the  distance,  at  least,  there  was  never 
more  than  a  mile  or  two  without  a  clearing 
and  a  house.  This  part  of  the  road  grew 
familiar  to  me  afterward,  I  traveled  it  so 
often ;  and  now,  as  I  take  it  once  more  in 
my  mind,  I  can  see  it  in  all  its  windings. 
Here,  as  the  land  begins  to  decline  from  the 
plateau,  or  mountain  shoulder,  on  which  the 
village  nestles,  stands  a  line  of  towering  con- 
ical hemlocks,  —  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
tall,  at  a  moderate  guess.  Out  of  them  came 
the  nasal,  high-pitched,  highly  characteristic 
ank^  anh^  ank  of  my  first  Canadian  nuthatch, 
—  my  first  one  in  North  Carolina,  I  mean. 
That,  by  the  bye,  was  on  this  very  trip  to 
Turtlepond.  I  had  been  on  the  watch  for 
him,  and  put  him  into  my  bird  list  with  pe- 
culiar  satisfaction.     He  was  like  a  fellow 


m  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  41 

Yankee,  as  was  also  the  brown  creeper  that 
dwelt  near  by.     This  same  row  of  hemlocks 

—  beside  a  brook,  as  Southern  hemlocks  al- 
ways are,  with  a  thicket  of  laurel  and  rho- 
dodendron underneath  —  was  also  one  of  the 
haunts  of  the  olive-sided  flycatcher,  another 
Northerner,  who  chooses  the  loftiest  perch 
he  can  find  from  which  to  deliver  his  wild 
quit-quequeeo.  Should  this  Carolinian  re- 
presentative of  a  boreal  species  ever  be  pro- 
moted to  the  dignity  of  sub-specific  rank, 
as  has  happened  to  some  of  his  neighbors, 
I  should  bid  for  the  honor  of  naming  him, 

—  the  hemlock  flycatcher. 

By  the  time  I  reached  this  point,  on  a  sul- 
try morning,  I  was  commonly  ready  for  a 
breathing-spell,  and  by  good  luck  here  was  a 
most  convenient  log,  on  which  I  used  to  sit, 
listening  to  the  bird  chorus,  and  waylaying 
any  socially  disposed  mountaineer  who  might 
chance  to  come  along  on  his  way  to  the 
town ;  for  Highlands,  whatever  an  outsider 
may  think  of  it,  is  in  its  own  measure  and 
degree  a  veritable  metropolis.^  The  only 
man  who  ever  failed  to  halt  in  response  to 

^  All  things  g-o  by  comparison.    "  I  always  lived  in  the 
country  till  I  came  here,"  said  my  driver  to  me  one  day. 


42  NORTH  CABOLINA 

my  greeting  was  a  very  canonical-looking 
parson.  He  was  traveling  up  to  Zion  in  a 
"  buggy,"  and  not  unlikely  was  meditating 
his  next  vSunday's  sermon. 

If  the  religious  condition  of  a  community 
is  to  be  estimated  by  the  number  of  its  meet- 
ing-houses, let  me  say  in  passing,  then  High- 
lands ought  to  be  a  very  suburb  of  the  New 
Jerusalem.  Its  population  cannot  be  more 
than  three  or  four  hundred,  but  its  churches 
are  legion.  "Yes,"  said  a  sprightly  young 
lady,  to  whom  the  subject  was  mentioned, 
"  if  there  were  only  one  or  two  more,  we 
might  all  have  one  apiece."  Baptists,  Meth- 
odists (of  different  sorts,  —  species  and  sub- 
species), Presbyterians,  Episcopalians,  Ad- 
ventists.  Unitarians,  —  all  the  sects  seemed 
to  be  provided  for,  though  I  am  not  sur^ 
about  the  Catholics  and  the  Swedenborgians. 
It  is  queer  how  conscientiously  particular, 
and  almost  private,  the  worship  of  God  is 
made.  The  Almighty  must  be  a  great  lover 
of  mint,  anise,  and  cummin,  one  would  say. 
I  was  reminded  again  and  again  of  that  sweet 
old  Scripture :  "  Behold  how  good  and  how 
pleasant  it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together 
in  unity !  " 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  43 

This  digression,  though  suggested  by  the 
recollection  of  my  serious-faced  clergyman, 
is  not  to  be  taken  as  reflecting  in  any  wise 
upon  him  or  upon  his  calling.  He  was  try- 
ing to  do  his  duty,  I  have  no  question.  If 
he  felt  obliged  to  have  a  pulpit  and  a  uni- 
form of  his  own,  it  was  not  that  he  differed 
from  other  people,  but  that  other  people  dif- 
fered from  him.  May  his  work  prosper,  and 
his  days  be  long!  He  was  traveling  in  a 
^^ggy^  as  I  have  said.  Had  he  been  on  foot, 
no  doubt  he  might  have  been  readier  to  stop 
a  minute  to  chat  with  an  inquisitive  stranger, 
—  as  ready,  perhaps,  as  a  more  venerable 
pilgrim  who  happened  along  a  few  minutes 
later,  and  who  not  only  stopped,  but  sat 
down,  and,  so  to  speak,  paid  me  a  visit :  a 
little  man,  bent  with  his  seventy-three  years 
(he  told  me  his  age  almost  at  once),  who 
had  come  ten  miles  on  foot  that  morninir. 
In  one  hand  he  carried  a  live  turkey,  —  with 
its  legs  tied,  of  course,  —  and  in  the  other  a 
chicken.  Poor  things,  they  were  making 
their  last  journey.  It  was  a  "  very  hot  day," 
the  old  man  thought.  His  cotton  shirt  was 
flung  wide  open  for  coolness,  and  as  he 
mopped  his  face,  having  put  down  his  bur- 


44  NORTH  CAROLINA 

dens  and  taken  off  his  hat,  he  talked  in  a 
cheerful,  honest  voice,  most  agreeable  to  lis- 
ten to.  Life  was  still  a  pleasant  experience 
to  him,  as  it  seemed.  I  doubt  whether  he 
had  ever  tired  of  it  for  a  day.  He  would 
sell  the  turkey  and  the  chicken,  buy  a  little 
tobacco  and  perhaps  one  or  two  other  neces- 
saries, and  then  trudge  the  ten  miles  home 
again.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  have  a  market 
for  one's  produce,  and  a  greater  thing  to  be 
contented  with  one's  lot. 

Not  far  beyond  this  favorite  resting-place 
—  tempting  even  in  the  retrospect,  as  the 
reader  perceives  —  is  a  house  with  a  good- 
sized  clearing,  through  which  meanders  a 
trout-stream,  to  the  endless  comfort  of  one 
of  the  younger  boys  of  the  family.  I  saw 
him  angling  there,  one  day,  with  shining 
success.  What  a  good  time  he  was  having ! 
He  could  hardly  bait  the  hook  fast  enough. 
I  leaned  over  the  fence  and  watched  him 
out  of  pure  sympathy  (he  did  not  see  me,  I 
think,  though  there  was  nothing  in  the  world 
between  us  —  except  the  fish),  and  after- 
ward I  mentioned  the  circumstance  to  his 
father.  *'  Oh,  he  is  a  great  fisherman,"  was 
the  proud  response.      For  a  boy  that  is  a 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  45 

boy  a  trout-brook  is  better  than  all  the  toy- 
shops. The  good  man  and  his  wife  (New 
fork  State  people,  who  had  moved  here 
twelve  years  before)  treated  me  most  hospi- 
tably when  I  came  to  know  them,  but  on 
this  first  morning,  having  far  to  go,  I  went 
by  without  calling,  pausing  only  to  note  the 
chebec  of  a  least  flycatcher,  which  seemed  to 
be  at  home  in  their  orchard  trees.  Its  name 
is  still  Number  60  in  my  North  Carolina 
list 

Another  bend  in  the  road,  and  I  came 
within  sight  of  the  first  of  two  mills.  These 
had  figured  at  considerable  length  in  my 
chart  of  directions,  and  near  them,  as  I  now 
remember,  I  fell  into  some  uncertainty  as 
to  how  this  chart  was  to  be  interpreted.  I 
turned  aside,  therefore,  to  inquire  of  the 
second  miller  ;  but  before  I  could  reach  him 
a  blue  yellow-backed  warbler  began  singing 
from  a  treetop ;  and  as  he  was  my  first  spe- 
cimen here,  I  must  out  with  my  opera-glass 
and  find  him.  The  miller  surveyed  my  pro- 
ceedings with  unashamed  curiosity,  but  he 
answered  my  questions,  none  the  less,  and 
for  still  another  stage  I  kept  on  with  the 
comfortable  assurance  that  I  was  headed  for 
Turtlepond. 


46  NORTH  CAROLINA 

If  I  failed  to  arrive  there,  it  should  not 
be  for  want  of  using  my  tongue.  From  the 
time  I  left  Highlands  I  had  inquired  my 
way  of  every  man  I  met.  For  one  thing,  I 
relish  natural  country  talk ;  and  if  there 
is  to  be  conversation,  it  must  somehow  be 
opened.  I  kept  in  mind,  too,  the  skepticism 
of  my  Highlands  informant,  and  by  unhappy 
experience  I  had  learned  how  easy  it  is,  in 
cases  of  this  kind,  to  go  astray  through  some 
misunderstanding  of  question  or  answer. 

So  I  sauntered  along,  with  frequent  inter- 
ruptions, of  course  (that  was  part  of  the 
game),  —  here  for  a  bird,  there  for  a  flower, 
a  tree,  or  a  bit  of  landscape.  I  recall  es- 
pecially great  numbers  of  the  tiny  yellow 
lady's-slipper  and  beds  of  the  white-flowered 
clintonia  —  the  latter  a  novelty  to  me  —  just 
coming  into  bloom.  Then,  by  and  by,  the 
road  began  a  long,  sidelong  ascent  of  a 
mountain  ;  but  at  the  last  moment,  when  I 
seemed  to  have  left  human  habitations  be- 
hind me  for  good,  I  saw  across  the  narrow 
valley  through  the  forest  —  the  branches  at 
this  height  being  still  in  the  bud  —  two  men 
at  work  in  a  ploughed  field.  Here  was  one 
more  opportunity  to  assure  myself  against 


IN   QUEST  OF  HAVENS  47 

contingencies,  and  with  a  loud  "hullo"  I 
gained  their  attention.  Was  this  the  road  to 
Turtlepond  ?  I  shouted.  Yes,  they  shouted 
back  (a  man  who  could  not  lift  up  his  voice 
would  be  poorly  off  in  that  country)  ;  I  was 
to  keep  on  and  on  as  far  as  the  schoolhouse, 
just  beyond  which  I  must  be  sure  to  turn  to 
the  right.  Very  good,  said  I  to  myself,  here 
is  something  definite  ;  and  again  I  faced  the 
mountain  road. 

That  was  a  master  stroke  of  precaution. 
But  for  it  I  might  have  walked  till  night, 
and  should  never  have  found  myself  at 
Turtlepond.  I  passed  one  more  house,  it  is 
true,  but  there  was  no  one  visible  about  it, 
and  when  at  last  I  reached  the  log  school- 
house,  standing  all  by  itself  deep  in  the 
woods,  it  was  locked  and  empty,  and  the 
"road  to  the  right"  was  so  obscure,  so  ut- 
terly unlike  a  road,  that  only  for  my  last 
man's  emphatic  warning  (how  I  blessed  him 
for  his  good  sense !)  I  should  have  passed 
it  without  a  suspicion  that  it  was  or  ever 
had  been  a  thoroughfare.  As  it  was,  I 
looked  at  it  and  wondered.  Could  that  be 
my  course.?  There  was  no  sign  that  horse 
or  wheel  had  turned  that  corner  for  an  in- 


48  NORTH  CAROLINA 

definite  period.  Still,  my  instructions  were 
explicit.  This  was  certainly  the  school- 
house,  and  at  the  schoolhouse  I  was  to  turn 
to  the  right.  Lest  I  should  be  interpreting 
a  preposition  too  strictly,  nevertheless,  I 
kept  on  for  a  piece  in  the  way  I  had  been 
traveling.  No,  there  was  no  other  cross- 
road, and  I  came  back  to  the  schoolhouse, 
rested  awhile  under  a  big  tree,  and  then 
took  the  blind  trail.  Happily,  it  very  soon 
became  more  distinct,  more  evidently  a  road 
in  use ;  and  being  now  on  a  downward 
grade,  I  jogged  along  in  good  spirits. 

It  was  drawing  near  noon,  and  unless  my 
jaunt  was  to  measure  more  than  eight  miles 
I  must  be  somewhere  near  the  end  of  it. 
The  mountain  forest  was  especially  inviting 
here,  with  a  brook  now  and  then  and  a  pro- 
fusion of  ground  flowers,  beside  the  laurel 
and  the  azaleas ;  but  I  "must  not  linger,  I 
said  to  myself,  as  I  might  be  obliged  to 
spend  an  hour  or  two  at  Turtlepond.  It 
was  hardly  to  be  assumed  that  the  ravens 
would  be  waiting  for  me,  to  greet  me  on  the 
instant.  Meanwhile,  a  pileated  woodpecker 
set  up  a  lusty  shout  just  in  advance,  and  in 
another  moment  went  dashing  off  among  the 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  49 

trees,  still  shouting  as  he  flew.  He  was  no 
rarity  in  these  parts,  but  it  did  me  good  to 
see  his  flaming  crest  and  the  flash  of  his 
white  wing-spots.  Then,  when  I  had  gone 
a  little  farther  and  could  already  discern  the 
open  valley,  a  kingfisher  rattled  and  showed 
himself.  He  was  the  first  of  his  kind,  and 
went  down  straightway  as  Number  62.  Per- 
haps Number  63  would  be  the  raven ! 

Well,  I  emerged  from  the  forest,  the  road 
turning  rather  sharply  at  the  last  and  mak- 
ing down  the  valley  with  a  brook  on  its  left 
hand ;  and  here  I  pretty  soon  approached  a 
house.  The  two  opposite  doors  were  open 
(mosquitoes  are  unknown  in  this  happy 
country),  and  inside,  looking  out  of  the  back 
door  in  the  direction  of  the  brook,  stood  a 
woman  and  a  brood  of  children.  They  were 
talking  pretty  loudly,  as  people  may  who 
live  so  far  from  human  neighbors,  and  a 
hound  stood  silent  behind  them.  I  drew 
near,  but  they  did  not  hear  me.  Then, 
rather  than  startle  them  rudely  with  a 
strange  voice,  I  touched  the  fence-rail  with 
my  umbrella.  Instantly  the  hound  turned 
and  began  baying,  and  the  woman,  bidding 
him  be  quiet,  came  to  the  front  door  and 


50  NORTH  CAROLINA 

answered  my  good-morning.  Could  she  tell 
me  where  Zeb  McKinney  lived  ?  I  inquired. 
Yes,  it  was  the  next  house  down  the  road, 
"  about  a  quarter."  Hereabouts,  as  I  knew, 
a  "quarter"  means  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 
In  Yankee  land  it  means  twenty-five  cents. 
The  character  of  a  people  may  be  judged  in 
part  by  the  ellipses  of  their  daily  speech,  — 
the  things  that  are  taken  for  granted  by 
every  one  as  present  in  the  minds  of  others. 
I  believe  I  did  not  raise  the  question  of 
ravens  at  this  first  house.  For  the  instant 
it  was  enough  to  know  that  I  had  arrived  at 
Turtlepond.  But  my  eye  was  open  and  my 
ear  alert.  And  surely  this  was  a  place  for 
ravens  and  every  wild  thing :  a  narrow  val- 
ley, tightly  shut  in,  with  nothing  in  sight 
but  the  crowding  walls  and  a  patch  of  sky. 
Aloft  in  the  distance,  in  the  direction  of 
Hickory  Gap  (so  I  heard  it  called  after- 
ward, and  wished  that  all  place-names  were 
equally  euphonious),  some  large  bird,  hawk 
or  eagle,  was  sailing  out  of  sight.  What  a 
groveling  creature  is  man,  in  the  compari- 
son !  Along  the  brookside  grew  splendid 
halesia-trees,  full  of  white  bells,  and  a  more 
splendid  crab-apple  tree,  —  one  of  the  glo- 


m  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  51 

ries  of  America,  —  just  now  a  perfect  cloud 
of  pink  buds  and  blooms  and  tender  green 
leaves.  Here  sang  catbirds,  thrashers,  wood 
thrushes,  robins,  rose-breasted  grosbeaks,  a 
blue  golden-winged  warbler,  and  I  forget 
what  else.  I  had  not  traveled  so  far,  half 
disabled  as  I  was,  to  listen  to  birds  of  their 
quality.  And  the  ravens?  Well,  at  that 
moment  they  must  have  an  engagement  else- 
where. Perhaps  they  were  still  instructing 
their  young  in  the  art  of  volitation. 

And  now,  having  walked  "  about  a 
quarter,"  I  was  at  Zeb  McKinney's.  There 
was  no  need  to  inquire  if  he  were  at  home. 
Through  the  open  door  I  could  see  that 
the  only  occupants  of  the  house  were  two 
women :  one  young,  one  very  old  and  stiff. 
The  latter,  as  was  meet,  came  to  speak  to 
the  stranger.  No,  Mr.  McKinney  was  not 
at  home ;  he  had  gone  down  to  the  sawmill. 
Ravens?  Yes,  they  saw  them  once  in  a 
while,  but  she  did  not  remember  noticing 
any  for  some  time  back.  The  spring  was 
just  below  the  house ;  I  should  find  a  gourd 
to  drink  from, 

I  drank  from  the  spring,  pondered  the 
woman's  "once   in   a  while,"  took   a   look 


52  NORTH  CAROLINA 

about  me,  and  then  retraced  my  steps, 
having  in  mind  a  comfortable  nooning- 
place,  out  of  sight  of  the  houses,  where  I 
would  eat  my  luncheon,  and  observe  the 
ravens  at  my  leisure  as  they  crossed  from 
one  mountain  to  another  above  my  head. 
For  all  the  unexpectedness  of  the  old 
woman's  dubious  phrase,  I  was  not  dis- 
couraged. Why  should  I  be?  Mr.  Bur- 
roughs did  not  find  the  English  nightingale 
all  at  once,  nor  did  M.  Tartarin  kill  a  lion 
on  his  first  day  in  the  Algerian  desert ;  and 
if  these  men  had  exercised  patience,  so 
could  I. 

*  At  the  right  spot,  therefore,  where  the 
shade  fell  upon  a  handy  stump,  I  took  my 
seat.  First  a  line  or  two  in  my  notebook, 
and  then  I  would  dispose  of  my  luncheon. 
At  that  instant,  however,  two  boys  came 
down  the  road ;  and  when  I  spoke  to  them, 
they  waited  for  no  more  explicit  invitation, 
but  planted  themselves  on  the  ground,  one 
on  each  side  of  me.  If  I  asked  them  a 
question,  they  answered  it  ;  if  I  kept 
silence,  they  sat  and  looked  at  me.  For 
aught  that  appeared,  they  meant  to  spend 
the   afternoon  thus   engaged.     Pleasant   as 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  53 

popularity  is,  its  manifestations  were  just 
now  a  trouble.  The  ravens  might  fly  over 
at  any  moment,  and  it  was  important  that 
I  should  be  undisturbed,  —  to  say  nothing 
of  my  dinner.  I  remembered  the  saying  of 
Poor  Richard,  —  "  Love  your  neighbor,  but 
don't  pull  down  your  hedge ; "  and  at  last, 
seeing  that  something  must  be  done,  I  rose, 
moved  a  few  rods,  and  then,  dropping  sud- 
denly upon  the  grass,  said,  "  Good-by." 
The  boys  took  the  hint,  and  ten  minutes 
later  I  saw  them  beside  the  brook,  trying 
their  luck  with  the  fish.  The  quality  of 
selfishness  had  proved  itself  twice  blest,  as 
happens  oftener  than  we  think,  it  may  be, 
in  this  "  unintelligible  world." 

This  part  of  the  story  need  not  be  pro- 
longed. The  reader  has  already  foreseen 
that  my  luncheon  was  finished  without 
interruption.  No  raven's  wing  darkened 
the  air.  I  lingered  till  the  case  began  to 
seem  hopeless.  Then  I  loitered  as  slowly 
as  possible  up  the  valley,  and  at  last  took 
the  ascending  road  through  the  mountain 
woods  toward  the  log  schoolhouse.  By 
this  time  there  were  signs  of  rain,  but  with 
a  three-hour  jaunt  before  me  it  was  useless 


54  NOETH  CAROLINA 

to  hurry.  So  at  the  schoolhouse  corner  I 
rested  again,  —  partly  to  enjoy  the  sight  of 
Rabun  Bald,  a  noble  Georgia  peak,  which 
showed  grandly  from  this  point,  —  and 
then,  all  at  once,  thinking  of  nothing  but 
the  landscape,  I  heard  a  far-away  cry, 
hoarse,  loud,  utterly  strange,  utterly  unlike 
a  crow's,  and  yet  unmistakably  coracious ! 
That  surely  was  a  raven's  voice.  It  could 
be  nothing  else.  If  I  were  out  of  the 
woods,  where  I  could  look  about  me  !  The 
biid,  whatever  it  was,  was  evidently  on  the 
wing  ;  the  sound  was  now  here,  now  there  ; 
but  alas,  it  was  receding.  Fainter  and 
fainter  it  became  at  each  repetition,  and 
then  all  was  silent,  till  a  heavy  clap  of 
thunder  and  a  sudden  blackness  recalled 
me  to  myself,  and  I  resumed  the  march 
homeward.  Soon  it  rained.  Then  came  a 
general  pother  of  the  elements,  —  wind, 
hail,  lightning  and  thunder.  Not  far 
beyond  me,  as  I  now  called  to  mind,  there 
was  a  house,  the  only  one  I  had  seen  on  the 
mountain.  I  hastened  forward,  therefore, 
and  took  shelter  on  the  piazza.  A  dog  was 
cowering  inside,  too  badly  frightened  to 
resent  my  intrusion  or  to  bid  me  welcome. 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  55 

And  there  we  stayed  till  the  clouds  broke. 
Then,  refreshing  myself  with  big  hailstones, 
which  lay  white  in  the  grass,  I  took  the 
road  again  for  the  long  diagonal  descent  to 
the  valley. 

I  was  well  fagged  by  the  time  I  reached 
Highlands  ;  but  I  had  been  to  Turtlepond, 
and  in  my  memory  were  some  confused 
recollections  of  a  few  distant  notes,  probably 
a  bird's,  and  possibly  a  raven's.  To  that 
complexion  had  the  matter  already  come. 
It  is  marvelous  how  quickly  certainty  loses 
its  color  when  once  the  breath  of  doubt 
touches  it. 

Two  days  afterward,  finding  myself  not 
yet  acclimated,  I  joined  a  company  who 
were  making  a  day's  wagon-trip  to  White- 
side, the  highest  peak  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  Highlands ;  a  real  mountain, 
said  to  be  five  thousand  feet  in  height,  but 
looking  considerably  lower  to  my  eye,  its 
surroundings  being  all  so  elevated,  and  the 
southern  latitude,  as  I  suppose,  giving  to  it 
a  more  richly  wooded,  and  consequently  less 
rugged  and  alpine  appearance  than  belongs 
to  New  England  mountains  of  a  correspond- 
ing rank.     On  the  southerly  side  it  breaks 


bQ  NORTH  CAROLINA 

off  into  a  huge  perpendicular  light-colored 
cliff,  said  to  be  eighteen  hundred  feet  in 
depth,  from  which  it  derives  its  name  and 
much  of  its  local  distinction.  Above  this 
cliff  rises  its  knob  of  a  summit,  with  the 
sight  of  which  I  had  grown  familiar  as  one 
of  the  principal  points  in  the  landscape 
from  the  hotel  veranda. 

The  wagon  carried  us  by  a  roundabout 
course  to  the  base  of  this  rocky  knob,  and 
there  the  majority  of  the  party  remained, 
while  two  ladies  and  myself  clambered  up 
a  steep  pitch  to  the  summit,  to  take  the 
prospect  and  to  feel  that  we  had  been 
there,  —  and  perhaps  to  see  a  raven  ;  for 
Whiteside  had  from  the  beginning  been 
held  up  to  me  as  one  of  that  bird's  par- 
ticular resorts.  "  Wait  till  you  go  to 
Whiteside,"  I  had  been  told  again  and 
again. 

What  had  looked  like  a  pyramidal  rock 
turned  out  to  be  the  end  of  a  long  ridge, 
over  which  we  marched  in  Indian  file  for  a 
mile  or  more,  picking  flowers  (the  nodding 
Trillium  sti/losum^  especially,  of  which  each 
new  specimen  seemed  pinker  and  prettier 
than  the  last)  and  admiring  the  landscape, 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  57 

—  a  boundless  woodland  panorama,  with 
clearings  and  houses  in  Whiteside  valley, 
and  innumerable  hazy  mountains  rising  one 
beyond  another  in  every  direction.  The 
world  of  new  leafage  below  us,  now 
darkened  by  cloud  shadows,  now  shining  in 
the  sun,  was  beautiful  far  beyond  any  skill 
of  mine  to  picture  it. 

We  were  still  walking  and  quietly  enjoy- 
ing —  my  fellow  tourists  being,  fortunately, 
of  the  non-exclamatory  type  —  when  the 
silence  was  broken  by  loud  screams. 
"  Ravens  !  "  I  thought,  —  for  when  the 
mind  is  full  it  is  liable  to  spill  over  at  any 
sudden  jar,  —  and,  dropping  my  umbrella, 
I  sprang  to  the  edge  of  the  cliff.  The  bird 
was  only  a  hawk,  soaring  and  screaming, 
too  far  away  to  be  made  out ;  a  duck-hawk, 
perhaps,  but  certainly  not  a  raven.  "  How 
you  frightened  me  !  "  said  one  of  the  ladies. 
"  I  thought  you  were  going  to  throw  your- 
self over  the  precipice."  My  hobby-horse 
amused  her, —  as  it  did  me  also,  —  but  she 
was  herself  too  sound  an  enthusiast  to  be 
really  unsympathetic.  A  New  Jersey 
grandmother,  she  made  nothing  of  a 
thirteen-mile  tramp,  a  thorough  drenching. 


58  NORTH  CAROLINA 

and  a  pedestrian's  blister,  when  rare  flowers 
were  in  question,  and  the  next  morning 
would  be  off  again  before  breakfast,  scour- 
ing the  country  for  new  trophies.  Like 
Mme.  Trepof,  she  would  have  gone  to 
Sweden  in  search  of  a  match-box,  had  the 
notion  taken  her.  As  for  ravens,  she  had 
already  seen  one,  only  a  few  days  before  my 
arrival.  It  flew  directly  over  the  hotel,  and 
she  recognized  it  at  once,  not  as  a  raven,  to 
be  sure,  but  as  "  the  blackest  crow  she  had 
ever  seen."  A  man  who  happened  to  be 
doing  some  carpenter's  work  about  the 
house  heard  her  exclamation,  and  told  her 
what  it  was,  and  by  good  luck  he  was  to-day 
our  driver.  It  was  wonderful  how  much 
encouragement  I  received  in  my  amusing 
pursuit.  If  only  there  were  fewer  stories 
and  more  ravens  !  I  was  ready  to  say. 

Yet  if  I  said  so,  it  was  only  in  a  fit  of 
impatience.  In  point  of  fact,  I  received 
with  thankfulness  every  such  bit  of  evidence 

that  Dr. 's  gloomy  prognostications  were 

ill  founded.  On  the  very  morning  after 
this  expedition  to  Whiteside,  for  example,  I 
was  on  my  way  to  the  summit  of  Satulah, 
—  an  easy  jaunt,  and  a  capital  observatory, 


IN  QUEST  OF  BAVENS  59 

—  when  I  met  a  young  man  carrying  a  gun, 
and  proposed  to  him  the  inevitable  inquiry. 
Oh  yes,  he  saw  ravens  pretty  often  ;  he  had 
seen  some  within  a  month,  he  thought.  They 
never  flew  over  without  calling  out ;  which, 
as  I  interpreted  it,  might  mean  only  that 
when  they  kept  silence  he  failed  to  notice 
them.  Here  was  more  proof  of  the  birds' 
presence  ;  but  the  words  "  within  a  month  " 
kept  down  any  tendency  to  undue  exhilara- 
tion. 

That  noon,  at  the  hotel,  I  had  an  interest- 
ing ornithological  conference  with  two  resi- 
dents of  the  town,  both  of  them  already  well 
informed  as  to  the  nature  of  my  crotchet. 
For  a  beginning,  one  of  them  told  me  that 
he  had  seen  a  raven  that  very  forenoon,  — 
and  as  usual  it  was  "flying  over."  Then 
the  talk  somehow  turned  upon  the  whippoor- 
will,  of  which  I  had  thus  far  found  no  trace 
hereabout,  and  they  agreed  that  it  was  not 
uncommon  at  certain  seasons.  It  was  often 
called  the  bullbat,  they  added.  They  had 
seen  it,  both  of  them,  I  think,  flying  far  up 
in  the  air  in  broad  daylight,  and  crying 
whij)poorwill  !  "  Good  !  "  said  I.  "  I  would 
rather  have  seen  that  than  all  the  ravens  in 


60  NORTH  CAROLINA 

North  Carolina."  Here  was  a  really  novel 
addition  to  the  familiar  legend  about  the 
identity  of  the  whippoorwill  and  the  night- 
hawk,  —  a  legend  whose  distribution  is  per- 
haps almost  as  wide  as  that  of  the  birds  them- 
selves. 

But  wonders  were  not  to  stop  here.  One 
of  the  men,  the  one  who  had  that  forenoon 
seen  a  raven,  proceeded  to  inform  me  that 
catbirds  passed  the  winter  in  the   mud,  in 

a  state  of  hibernation.     William had 

dug  them  up,  and  they  had  come  to  and 
flown  away.  He  himself  had  never  seen 
this,  but  he  knew,  as  everybody  else  did, 
that  catbirds  disappeared  in  the  autumn, 
there  was  no  telling  how  or  when,  and  reap- 
peared in  the  spring  in  a  manner  equally 
mysterious.  I  hinted  some  incredulity,  to 
his  great  surprise,  intimating  for  one  thing 
that  it  was  well  known  that  catbirds  migrated 
farther  south  ;  whereupon  he  appealed  to  his 
companion.     "  Would  n't  you  believe  it,  if 

William told  you  he  had  seen  it?  "  he 

asked;  and  there  was  a  shout  of  laughter 
from  the  bystanders  when  the  second  man, 
after  a  minute's  reflection,  answered  bluntly, 
"No." 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  01 

It  would  be  too  long  a  story  to  set  down 
all  the  answers  I  received  from  the  many 
persons  whom  I  questioned  here  and  there 
in  my  daily  peregrinations.  One  man  was 
sorry  he  had  not  heard  of  me  sooner.  A  cow 
had  been  killed  by  lightning  somewhere  on 
the  mountains,  a  week  or  two  before.  That 
would  have  been  my  opportunity.  Ravens 
are  sure  to  be  on  hand  at  such  a  time.  But 
it  was  too  late  now,  as  they  never  touch  flesh 
after  it  has  begun  to  spoil.  Another  man,  a 
German,  living  some  miles  out  of  the  village, 
said,  "  Well,  in  my  country  we  call  them 
ravens,  but  here  they  call  them  crows." 
They  were  a  nuisance  ;  he  had  to  kill  them. 
He  knew  smaller  black  birds,  in  flocks,  but 
no  larger  ones.  He  and  the  apothecary  — 
who  now  and  then  laughed  good-humoredly 
at  my  continued  failure,  as  I  stopped  to  pass 
the  time  of  day  with  him,  or  to  ask  him 
about  the  way  to  some  waterfall  —  were,  as 
well  as  I  remember,  the  only  witnesses  for 
the  negative ;  so  that  the  question  was  no 
longer  as  to  the  presence  of  the  birds,  but  as 
to  the  degree  of  their  commonness  and  the 
probability  of  my  seeing  them.  It  would 
be  too  much  to  say  that  the  whole  town  was 


62  NORTH  CAROLINA 

excited  over  the  matter,  but  at  least  my 
few  fellow  boarders  at  the  hotel  either  felt 
or  simulated  a  pretty  constant  interest. 
"  AVell,"  one  or  another  of  them  would  say, 
as  I  dragged  my  weary  steps  up  the  hill  to 
the  door,  at  the  end  of  a  day's  outing,  "  well, 
have  you  seen  any  ravens  yet  ?  " 

One  day  there  appeared  at  the  dinner- 
table  a  bright,  rosy-faced,  clear-eyed,  whole- 
some-looking boy  of  nine  or  ten  years,  and 
the  gentleman  who  had  brought  him  in  as 
his  guest  presently  introduced  him  to  me, 
with  the  remark  that  perhaps  "  Bob  "  could 
give  me  information  upon  my  favorite  topic. 
Bob  smiled  bashfully,  and  I  began  my  ex- 
amination. Yes,  he  said,  he  had  seen  ravens. 
How  often,  should  he  say?  Why,  almost 
every  day.  When  did  he  see  them  last? 
Yesterday.  How  many  were  there  ?  One. 
It  was  flying  over.  Did  it  call  ?  Yes,  they 
always  did.  How  much  bigger  than  a  crow 
was  it  ?  Not  much,  but  the  voice  was  very 
different.  This  last  was  a  model  answer,  — 
not  at  all  the  answer  of  a  dishonest  witness, 
or  of  an  honest  witness  ambitious  to  make 
out  a  story.  It  was  impossible  to  doubt  him 
(his  father  and  his  older  brother  confirmed 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  63 

his  testimony  afterward),  and  yet  I  had  been 
out  of  doors  almost  constantly  for  more  than 
two  weeks,  and  so  far  had  not  obtained  the 
first  glimpse  of  a  large,  wide-ranging,  high- 
flying bird  which  this  boy  —  who  lived  a  few 
miles  out  of  the  village,  it  is  true  —  saw 
nearly  every  day.  Verily,  as  the  unsuccess- 
ful man's  text  has  it  (and  a  comfortable  text 
it  is),  "the  race  is  not  to  the  swift,  .  .  . 
nor  yet  favour  to  men  of  skill ;  but  time  and 
chance  happeneth  to  them  all." 

I  speak  unadvisedly.  I  had  seen  ravens ; 
I  had  seen  them  here  at  Highlands.  But  it 
was  in  a  dream  of  the  night.  There  were 
two,  and  they  were  "flying  over,"  —  yes, 
and  calling  as  they  flew.  One  of  them  was 
partly  white,  an  albinistic  peculiarity  at 
which  I  do  not  remember  to  have  felt  the 
least  surprise.  But  indeed,  if  I  may  trust 
my  own  experience,  nothing  surprises  us  in 
dreamland.  There,  as  in  fairyland,  every- 
thing is  natural.  Perhaps  the  same  will  be 
true  in  a  world  after  this. 

Meantime,  if  my  eyes  were  holden  from 
some  things,  I  saw  many  others  as  I  traveled 
hither  and  thither,  now  to  a  mountain  top, 
now  down  one  of  the  roads  into  the  warm 


64  NORTH  CAROLINA 

lower  country,  now  to  some  far-away  wood- 
land waterfall.  The  days  were  all  too  short 
and  all  too  few.  Like  a  sensible  man,  to 
whom  years  had  brought  the  philosophic 
mind,  I  had  more  than  one  string  to  my  bow, 
and  toward  the  end  of  my  three  weeks  the 
very  thought  of  ravens  had  mostly  ceased 
to  trouble  me.  Then,  on  my  last  day  in 
the  village,  I  met  a  barefooted  boy  near  the 
hotel.  "  Howdy  ?  "  said  I.  "  Howdy  ?  "  he 
answered;  and  then  he  asked,  "Did  you 
git  to  see  your  ravens?"  "Who  is  this,  I 
thought,  and  how  does  he  know  me  ?  For 
I  am  not  used  to  being  famous.  But  I  an- 
swered No,  I  had  seen  no  ravens.  How 
did  he  know  I  wanted  to  see  any ?  "I  saw 
you  at  Turtlepond,"  he  said.  He  was  out 
there  with  his  cousin.  Cling  Cabe.  With 
that  it  all  came  back  to  me.  He  was  one 
of  the  boys  who  had  paid  me  such  flattering- 
noonday  attentions,  and  of  whom  I  had  taken 
so  shabby  a  leave.  I  was  glad  to  see  him 
again.  But  he  was  not  yet  done  with  his 
story.  Probably  he  had  carried  the  burden 
of  it  for  the  last  fortnight.  "  Two  ravens 
flew  over  just  after  you  left,"  he  said.  Was 
he  sure  they  were  ravens  ?     Yes,  his  uncle 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  65 

Zeb  ^  saw  them,  and  said  they  were.  Well, 
it  was  plainer  and  plainer  that  I  had  mis- 
taken my  game.  I  must  leave  it  for  younger 
eyes  to  see  ravens,  —  in  the  flesh,  at  least. 
"  Your  old  men  shall  dream  dreams,"  said 
the  prophet. 

It  was  May  27  when,  after  an  early  break- 
fast, I  left  Highlands  in  a  big  mountain 
wagon,  bound  for  Boston  by  the  way  of 
Dillsboro  and  Asheville.  I  had  come  into 
the  mountains  from  the  south,  and  was  go- 
ing out  in  a  northerly  direction.  The  road 
was  not  highly  recommended  ;  it  would  be 
a  rough,  all-day  drive,  but  it  would  take  me 
through  a  new  piece  of  country  ;  and  as  for 
the  jolting,  I  fancied  that  by  this  time  I  had 
become  hardened  to  all  that  the  steepest  and 
stoniest  of  roads  could  inflict  upon  a  passen- 
ger. On  that  point,  I  may  as  well  confess, 
though  it  does  not  concern  the  present  story, 
I  was  insufficiently  informed. 

It  had  been  agreed  that  I  should  take  my 

1  The   ^eat  "  war   governor "  and   senator  of  North 
Carolina  was  bom  among   the  mountains  of  the  State  ; 
and  from  what  I  heard,  he  seems  to  have  left  his  name 
"  to  be  found,  like  a  wild  flower, 
All  over  his  dear  country," 
as  truly  as  Wallace  ever  did  in  Scotland. 


66  NORTH  CAROLINA 

own  time,  making  the  trip  as  natural-histor- 
ical as  I  pleased.  "  It  fares  better  with 
sentiments  not  to  be  in  a  hurry  with  them," 
says  Sterne,  and  the  same  is  true  of  sciences 
and  other  pleasures.  Again  and  again  I 
ordered  the  horses  stopped  as  we  came  to 
some  likely  piece  of  cover,  but  little  or  no- 
thing resulted.  There  were  singers  in  plenty, 
but  no  new  voices.  After  all,  I  said  to  my- 
self, one  does  not  study  ornithology  to  any 
great  advantage  from  a  wagon-seat.  Yet  I 
remember  one  lesson  —  an  old  one  rehearsed 
—  that  the  morning  brought  me. 

Soon  after  getting  out  of  the  village  we 
passed  Stewart's  Pond.  This  had  been  one 
of  my  most  frequent  resorts.  A  considera- 
ble part  of  several  half-days  had  been  idled 
away  beside  it,  and  more  than  once  I  had 
commented  upon  the  singular  fact  that  its 
shores,  birdy  as  they  were,  harbored  no 
water  thrushes,  while  in  several  similar  places 
I  had  heard  them  singing  for  more  than  a 
fortnight.  There  was  something  really  mys- 
terious about  it,  I  was  inclined  to  think. 
The  place  seemed  made  for  them,  unless, 
perhaps,  the  damming  of  the  stream  had 
rendered  the  current  too  sluggish  to  suit 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  67 

their  taste.  Now,  however,  as  we  drove 
past,  and  just  as  I  was  bidding  the  place 
good-by,  a  water  thrush  struck  up  his  sim- 
ple, lazily  emphatic  tune.  "  Here  I  am, 
stranger,"  he  might  have  been  saying.  Had 
he  been  there  all  the  time  ?  I  did  not  know. 
One's  investigations  are  never  complete,  even 
in  the  most  limited  area. 

We  had  not  gone  many  miles  farther  be- 
fore we  took  what  was  for  me  a  new  road, 
which  turned  out  presently  to  be  like  all  the 
others  :  a  road  running  mostly  through  the 
forest,  uphill  and  downhill  by  turns,  with 
here  and  there,  at  long  distances,  a  solitary 
cabin,  unpainted,  perhaps  unwindowed,  yet 
pretty  certainly  with  a  patch  of  sweet-william 
and  other  old-fashioned  flowers  in  the  '*  front 
yard."  The  rudest  one  of  all,  in  the  very 
lonesomest  of  clearings,  had  before  the  door 
a  magnificent  eglantine  bush  that  would 
have  made  the  fortune  of  any  Northern  gar- 
dener. The  mountain  side  might  be  all 
aflame  with  azalea  and  laurel,  but  the  wo- 
man's heart  must  have  a  bit  of  garden,  some- 
thing planted  and  tended,  to  make  the  cabin 
more  like  a  home. 

For  some  hours  we   had  been  traveling 


68  NORTH  CAROLINA 

thus,  and  were  now  come  to  an  open  place 
in  the  town  of  Hamburg,  so  the  driver  told 
me.  Here,  all  at  once,  I  nudged  him  with 
a  quick  command  to  stop.  "  There  it  is  !  " 
I  cried,  as  I  whipped  out  my  opera-glass. 
"  There 's  a  raven  !  "  "  Yes,"  said  the  driver, 
"  that 's  the  bird."  He  was  flying  from  us 
in  a  diagonal  course,  making  toward  a  hill 
or  mountain,  —  at  a  comfortable  distance,  in 
the  best  of  lights,  and  most  admirably  dis- 
posed to  show  us  his  dimensions ;  but  he  was 
silent  and  in  tremendous  haste. 

"  Not  the  least  obeisance  made  he ;  not  a  minute  stopped 
or  stayed  he." 

If  you  would  only  say  something !  I  thought. 
But  he  did  not  "  call  out,"  perhaps  because 
he  was  not  "  flying  over."  I  held  the  glass 
on  him  till  he  passed  out  of  sight,  —  a  really 
good  look,  as  time  counts  under  such  circum- 
stances. Yes,  at  the  last  moment  I  had  seen 
a  raven !  Would  the  driver,  when  he  got 
back  to  Highlands  to-morrow  evening,  have 

the  goodness  so  to  inform  Dr. for  his 

comfort  ? 

Another  thing  I  had  accomplished :  I  had 
supplied  three  male  Hamburgers  with  abun- 
dant material  for  a  week's  gossip  ;  for  even 


IN  QUEST  OF  RAVENS  69 

in  my  excitement  I  had  been  aware  that  we 
had  halted  almost  directly  in  front  of  a 
house,  —  the  only  one  for  some  miles,  I 
think,  —  in  the  yard  of  which  three  men 
were  lounging.  I  looked  at  the  bird,  and 
the  men  looked  at  me.  It  gave  me  pleasure 
afterward  to  think  what  a  story  it  must  have 
made.  "  Yes,  sir,  it 's  gospel  truth :  he  pulled 
out  a  spy-glass  and  sat  there  looking  at  a 
raven.     I  reckon  he  never  see  one  before." 

I  speak  of  excitement,  but  it  was  a  won- 
der to  me  how  temperate  my  emotions  were, 
and  how  quickly  they  subsided.  Within  a 
half-mile  our  progress  was  blocked  by  a  large 
oak-tree,  which  the  wind  had  twisted  partly 
off  and  thrown  squarely  across  the  road. 
The  driver  had  brought  no  axe  along,  and 
was  obliged  to  go  back  to  the  house  for 
help,  leaving  me  to  care  for  the  team. 
Straight  before  me  loomed  the  Balsam 
Mountains,  a  dozen  peaks,  gloriously  high 
and  mountainous ;  not  too  far  away,  yet  far 
enough  to  be  blue,  with  white  clouds  veiling 
their  lower  slopes  and  so  lifting  the  tops 
skyward.  I  looked  at  them  and  looked  at 
them,  and  between  the  looks  I  put  the  raven 
into  my  notebook. 


70  NORTH  CAROLINA 

For  the  day  it  kept  its  place  unquestioned. 
Then,  long  before  I  reached  Massachusetts, 
I  punctuated  the  entry  with  a  question  mark. 
The  bird  had  been  silent ;  its  apparent  size 
might  have  been  an  illusion  ;  and  my  assur- 
ance of  the  moment,  absolute  though  it  was, 
would  not  bear  the  test  of  time  and  cold 
blood. 

Here  ended  my  raven-hunt.  I  had  en- 
joyed it,  and  would  gladly  have  made  it 
longer,  —  in  that  respect  it  had  been  suc- 
cessful ;  but  the  "  collection  "  I  was  to  have 
made,  my  little  store  of  "  first-hand  know- 
ledge," had  fared  but  poorly.  As  far  as 
ravens  were  concerned,  I  was  bringing  home 
a  lean  bag,  —  a  brace  of  interrogation 
points. 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND 

Stewart's  Pond,  on  tlie  Hamburg  road 
a  mile  or  so  from  the  village  of  Highlands, 
served  me,  a  visiting  bird-gazer,  more  than 
one  good  turn :  selfishly  considered,  it  was 
something  to  be  thankful  for  ;  but  I  never 
passed  it,  for  all  that,  without  feeling  that  it 
was  a  defacement  of  the  landscape.  The 
Cullasajah  River  is  here  only  four  or  five 
miles  from  its  source,  near  the  summit  of 
Whiteside  Mountain;  and  already  a  land- 
owner, taking  advantage  of  a  level  space 
and  what  passes  among  men  as  a  legal  title, 
has  dammed  it  (the  reader  may  spell 
the  word  as  he  chooses  —  "  dammed  "  or 
"  damned,"  it  is  all  one  to  a  mountain 
stream)  for  uses  of  his  own.  The  water 
backs  up  between  a  wooded  hill  on  one  side 
and  a  rounded  grassy  knoll  on  the  other, 
narrows  where  the  road  crosses  it  by  a  rude 
bridge,  and  immediately  broadens  again,  as 
best  it  can,  against  the  base  of  a  steeper, 


V 

72  NORTH  CAROLINA 

forest-covered  hill  just  beyond.  The  shape- 
lessness  of  the  pond  and  its  romantic  sur- 
roundings will  in  the  course  of  years  give 
it  beauty,  but  for  the  present  everything 
is  unpleasantly  new.  The  tall  old  trees 
and  the  ancient  rhododendron  bushes,  which 
have  been  drowned  by  the  brook  they  meant 
only  to  drink  from,  are  too  recently  dead. 
Nature  must  have  time  to  trim  the  ragged 
edges  of  man's  work  and  fit  it  into  her  own 
plan.  And  she  will  do  it,  though  it  may 
take  her  longer  than  to  absorb  the  man  him- 
self. 

When  I  came  in  sight  of  the  pond  for  the 
first  time,  in  the  midst  of  my  second  day's 
explorations,  my  first  thought,  it  must  be 
confessed,  was  not  of  its  beauty  or  want  of 
beauty,  but  of  sandpipers,  and  in  a  minute 
more  I  was  leaning  over  the  fence  to  sweep 
the  water-line  with  my  opera-glass.  Yes, 
there  they  were,  five  or  six  in  number,  one 
here,  another  there ;  solitary  sandpipers,  so 
called  with  only  a  moderate  degree  of  appro- 
priateness, breaking  their  long  northward 
journey  beside  this  mountain  lake,  which 
might  have  been  made  for  their  express  con- 
venience.    I  was  glad  to  see  them.    Without 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  73 

being  rare,  they  make  themselves  uncommon 
enough  to  be  always  interesting ;  and  they 
have,  besides,  one  really  famous  trait,  —  the 
extraordinary  secrecy  of  their  breeding  oper- 
ations. Well  known  as  they  are,  and  wide 
as  is  their  distribution,  their  eggs,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  are  still  unrepresented  in 
scientific  collections  except  by  a  single 
specimen  found  almost  twenty  years  ago  in 
Vermont ;  a  "record,"  as  we  say  in  these 
days,  of  which  Totanus  solitarius  may  right- 
fully be  proud. 

About  another  part  of  the  pond,  on  this 
same  afternoon  (May  8),  were  two  sand- 
pipers of  a  more  ordinary  sort :  spotted 
sandpipers,  familiar  objects,  we  may  fairly 
say,  the  whole  country  over.  Few  American 
schoolboys  but  have  laughed  at  their  absurd 
teetering  motions.  In  this  respect  the  soli- 
tary sandpiper  is  better  behaved.  It  does 
not  teeter  —  it  hohs ;  standing  still,  as  if 
in  deep  thought,  and  then  dipping  forward 
quickly  (a  fanciful  observer  might  take  the 
movement  for  an  affirmative  gesticulation, 
an  involuntary  "  Yes,  yes,  now  I  have  it !  ") 
and  instantly  recovering  itself,  exactly  in  the 
manner  of  a  plover.      This  is  partly  what 


74  NORTH  CAROLINA 

Mr.  Chapman  means,  I  suppose,  when  he 
speaks  of  the  solitary  sandpiper's  superior 
quietness  and  dignity ;  two  fine  attributes, 
which  may  have  much  to  do  with  their  pos- 
sessor's almost  unparalleled  success  in  elud- 
ing the  researches  of  oblogical  collectors. 
Nervousness  and  loquacity  are  poor  hands 
at  preserving  a  secret. 

Although  my  first  brief  visit  to  Stewart's 
Pond  made  three  additions  to  my  local  bird- 
list  (the  third  being  a  pair  of  brown  creep- 
ers), I  did  not  go  that  way  again  for  almost 
a  fortnight.  Then  (May  21)  my  feet  were 
barely  on  the  bridge  before  a  barn  swallow 
skimmed  past  me.  Swallows  of  any  kind 
in  the  mountains  of  North  Carolina  are  like 
hen-hawks  in  Massachusetts,  —  rare  enough 
to  be  worth  following  out  of  sight.  As  for 
barn  swallows,  I  had  not  expected  to  see 
them  here  at  all.  I  kept  my  eye  upon  this 
fellow,  therefore,  with  the  more  jealousy, 
and  happily  for  me  he  seemed  to  have  found 
the  spot  very  much  to  his  mind.  If  he  was 
a  straggler,  as  I  judged  likely  in  spite  of  the 
lateness  of  the  season,  he  was  perhaps  all 
the  readier  to  stay  for  an  hour  or  two  on 
so  favorable  a  hunting-ground.     With  him 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  75 

were  half  a  dozen  rough-wings,  —  probably 
not  stragglers,  —  hawking  over  the  water  ; 
feeding,  bathing,  and  now  and  then,  by  way 
of  variety,  engaging  in  some  pretty  spirited 
lovers'  quarrels.  In  one  such  encounter,  I 
remember,  one  of  the  contestants  received 
so  heavy  a  blow  that  she  quite  lost  her  bal- 
ance (the  sex  was  matter  of  guesswork)  and 
dropped  plump  into  the  water ;  and  more 
than  once  the  fun  was  interrupted  by  an 
irate  phoebe,  who  dashed  out  upon  the  mak- 
ers of  it  with  an  ugly  snap  of  his  beak,  as 
much  as  to  say,  "  Come,  now,  this  is  my 
bridge."  Mr.  Stewart  himself  could  hardly 
have  held  stricter  notions  about  the  rights 
of  property.  The  rough-wings  frequently 
perched  in  the  dead  trees,  and  once,  at  least, 
the  barn  swallow  did  likewise ;  something 
which  I  never  saw  a  bird  of  his  kind  do 
before,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection.  For 
to-day  he  was  in  Rome,  and  had  fallen  in 
with  the  Roman  customs. 

As  I  have  said  already,  his  presence  was 
unexpected.  His  name  is  not  included  in 
Mr.  Brewster's  North  Carolina  list,  and  I 
saw  no  other  bird  like  him  till  I  was  ap- 
proaching Asheville,  a  week  later,  in  a  rail- 


76  NOBTH  CAROLINA 

way  train.  Then  I  was  struck  almost  at  the 
same  moment  by  two  things  —  a  brick  chim- 
ney and  a  barn  swallow.  My  start  at  the 
sight  of  red  bricks  made  me  freshly  aware 
with  what  quickness  the  mind  puts  away  the 
past  and  accustoms  itself  to  new  and  strange 
surroundings.  Man  is  the  slave  of  habit, 
we  say ;  but  how  many  of  us,  even  in  middle 
age,  have  altered  our  modes  of  living,  our 
controlling  opinions,  or  our  daily  occupa- 
tions, and  in  the  shortest  while  have  for- 
gotten the  old  order  of  things,  till  it  has 
become  all  like  a  dream,  —  a  story  heard 
long  ago  and  now  dimly  remembered.  Was 
it  indeed  we  who  lived  there,  and  believed 
thus,  and  spent  our  days  so  ?  This  capacity 
for  change  augurs  well  for  the  future  of  the 
race,  and  not  less  for  the  future  of  the  indi- 
vidual, whether  in  this  world  or  in  another. 
In  a  previous  chapter  I  have  mentioned 
as  provocative  of  astonishment  the  igno- 
rance of  a  North  Carolina  man,  my  driver 
from  Walhalla,  who  had  no  idea  of  what  I 
meant  by  *'  swallows."  His  case  turned  out 
to  be  less  singular  than  I  thought,  however, 
for  when  I  spoke  of  it  to  an  exceptionally 
bright,  well-informed  farmer  in  the  vicinity 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  77 

of  Highlands,  he  answered  that  he  saw 
nothing  surprising  about  it ;  he  did  n't 
know  what  swallows  were,  neither.  Martins 
he  knew,  —  purple  martins,  —  though  there 
were  none  hereabout,  so  far  as  I  could 
discover,  but  "  swallow,"  as  a  bird's  name, 
was  a  novelty  he  had  never  heard  of.  Here 
on  Stewart's  bridge  I  might  have  tested  the 
condition  of  another  resident's  mind  upon 
the  same  point,  but  unfortunately  the  ex- 
periment did  not  occur  to  me.  He  came 
along  on  horseback,  and  I  called  his  atten- 
tion to  the  swallows  shooting  to  and  fro 
over  the  water,  a  pretty  spectacle  anywhere, 
but  doubly  so  in  this  swallow-poor  country. 
He  manifested  no  very  lively  interest  in  the 
subject ;  but  he  made  me  a  civil  answer,  — 
which  is  perhaps  more  than  a  hobby-horsical 
catechist,  who  travels  up  and  down  the 
world  cross-examining  his  busy  fellow 
mortals,  has  any  good  reason  for  counting 
upon  in  such  a  case.  With  so  many  things 
to  be  seen  and  done  in  this  short  life,  it  is 
obvious  that  all  men's  tastes  cannot  run  to 
ornithology.  "Yes,"  the  stranger  said, 
glancing  at  the  swallows,  "  I  expect  they 
have   their    nests    under   the   bridge."     A 


78  NORTH  CAROLINA 

civil  answer  I  called  it,  but  it  was  better 
tban  tbat;  indicating,  as  it  did,  some 
acquaintance  with  the  rough-wing's  habits, 
or  a  shrewd  knack  at  guessing.  But  the 
man  knew  nothing  about  a  bird  that  nested 
in  barns. 

A  short  distance  beyond  the  bridge,  in 
a  clearing  over  which  lay  scattered  the 
remains  of  a  house  that  had  formerly  stood 
in  it  (for  even  this  new  country  is  not 
destitute  of  ruins),  a  pair  of  snowbirds 
were  chipping  nervously,  and  near  the 
same  spot  my  ear  caught  the  lisping  call 
of  my  first  North  Carolina  brown  creeper. 
No  doubt  it  was  breeding  somewhere  close 
by,  and  my  imagination  at  once  fastened 
upon  a  loose  clump  of  water-kiUed  trees, 
from  the  trunks  of  which  the  dry  bark  was 
peeling  in  big  sun-warped  flakes,  as  the  site 
of  its  probable  habitation.  This  was  on  my 
first  jaunt  over  the  road,  and  during  the 
busy  days  that  followed  I  planned  more 
than  once  to  spend  an  hour  here  in  spying 
upon  the  birds.  A  brown  creeper's  nest 
would  be  something  new  for  me.  Now, 
therefore,  on  this  bright  morning,  when  I 
was  done  with  the   swallows,  I  walked   on 


A  MOUNTAIN   POND  79 

to  tlie  right  point  and  waited.  A  long 
time  passed,  or  what  seemed  a  long  time. 
With  so  many  invitations  pressing  upon 
one  from  all  sides  in  a  vacation  country,  it 
is  hard  sometimes  to  be  leisurely  enough 
for  the  best  naturalistic  results.  Then, 
suddenly,  I  heard  the  expected  tseej),  and 
soon  the  bird  made  its  appearance.  Sure 
enough,  it  flew  against  one  of  the  very 
trees  that  my  imagination  had  settled  upon, 
ducked  under  a  strip  of  dead  bark,  between 
it  and  the  bole,  remained  within  for  half  a 
minute,  and  came  out  again.  By  this  time 
the  second  bird  had  appeared,  and  was 
waiting  its  turn  for  admission.  They  were 
feeding  their  young ;  and  so  long  as  I 
remained  they  continued  their  work,  going 
and  coming  at  longer  or  shorter  intervals. 
I  made  no  attempt  to  inspect  their  opera- 
tions more  nearly ;  the  tree  stood  in  rather 
deep  water,  and  the  nest  was  situated  at  an 
altitude  of  perhaps  twenty  feet ;  but  I  was 
glad  to  see  for  myself,  even  at  arm's  length, 
as  it  were,  this  curious  and  highly  charac- 
teristic abode  of  a  bird  which  in  general  I 
meet  with  only  in  its  idle  season.  I  was 
surprised  to  notice  that  the  pair  had  chosen 


80  I^ORTH  CAROLINA 

a  strip  of  bark  which  was  fastened  to  the 
trunk  at  the  upper  end  and  hung  loose 
below.  The  nest  was  the  better  protected 
from  the  weather,  of  course,  but  it  must 
have  been  wedged  pretty  tightly  into  place, 
it  seemed  to  me,  unless  it  had  some  means 
of  support  not  to  be  guessed  at  from  the 
ground.  The  owners  entered  invariably  at 
the  same  point,  —  in  the  upper  corner. 
The  brown  creeper  has  been  flattening 
itself  against  the  bark  of  trees  for  so  many 
thousand  years  that  a  very  narrow  slit 
suffices  it  for  a  doorway. 

While  I  was  occupied  with  this  interest- 
ing bit  of  household  economy,  I  heard  a 
clatter  of  wheels  mingled  with  youthful 
shouts.  Two  boys  were  coming  round  a 
bend  in  the  road  and  bearing  down  upon 
me,  seated  upon  an  axle-tree  between  a 
pair  of  wheels  drawn  by  a  single  steer, 
which  was  headed  for  the  towTi  at  a  lively 
trot,  urged  on  by  the  cries  of  the  boys,  one 
of  whom  held  the  single  driving-rope  and 
the  other  a  whip.  "  How  fast  can  he  go  ?  '' 
I  asked,  as  they  drew  near.  I  hoped  to 
detain  them  for  a  few  minutes  of  talk,  but 
they  had  no  notion  of  stopping.     They  had 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  81. 

never  timed  him,  the  older  one  —  not  the 
driver  —  answered,  with  the  merriest  of 
grins.  I  expressed  wonder  that  they  coukl 
manage  him  with  a  single  rein.  "Oh,  I 
can  drive  him  without  any  line  at  all." 
"  But  how  do  you  steer  him  ?  "  said  I.  "  I 
yank  him  and  I  pull  him,"  was  the  laconic 
reply,  which  by  this  time  had  to  be  shouted 
over  the  boy's  shoulder;  and  away  the 
crazy  trap  went,  the  wobbling  wheels 
describing  all  manner  of  eccentric  and 
nameless  curves  with  every  revolution ;  and 
the  next  minute  1  heard  it  rattling  over  the 
bridge.  Undoubtedly  the  young  fellows 
thought  me  a  green  one,  not  to  know  that 
a  yank  and  a  steady  pull  are  equivalent  to  a 
gee  and  a  haw.  "  Live  and  learn,"  said  I 
to  myself.  It  was  a  jolly  mode  of  traveling, 
at  all  events,  as  good  as  a  circus,  both  for 
the  boys  and  for  me. 

On  my  way  through  the  village,  at  noon, 
I  passed  the  steer  turned  out  to  grass  by 
the  roadside,  and  had  a  better  look  at  the 
harness,  a  simple,  homemade  affair,  includ- 
ing a  pair  of  hames.  The  driving-rope, 
wliich  in  its  original  estate  might  have 
been   part   of   a  clothes-line  or  a  bed-cord, 


82  NORTH  CAROLINA 

was  attached  to  a  chain  which  went  round 
or  over  the  creature's  head  at  the  base  of 
the  horns.  The  lads  themselves  were 
farther  down  the  street,  and  the  younger 
one  nudged  the  other's  elbow  with  a  nod 
in  my  direction  as  I  passed  on  the  opposite 
sidewalk.  They  seemed  to  have  sobered 
down  at  a  wonderful  rate  since  their  arrival 
in  the  "  city."  I  should  hardly  have  known 
them  for  the  same  boys  ;  but  no  doubt  they 
would  wake  the  echoes  again  on  the  road 
homeward.  I  hoped  so,  surely,  for  I  liked 
them  best  as  I  saw  them  first. 

As  far  as  the  pleasure  of  life  goes,  boys 
brought  up  in  this  primitive  mountain 
country  have  little  to  complain  of.  They 
may  lack  certain  advantages  ;  in  this 
imperfect  world,  where  two  bodies  cannot 
occupy  the  same  space  at  once,  the  presence 
of  some  things  necessitates  the  absence  of 
others ;  but  most  certainly  they  have  their 
full  quota  of  what  in  youthful  phrase  are 
known  as  "  good  times."  The  very  prettiest 
sight  that  I  saw  in  North  Carolina,  not 
excepting  any  landscape  or  flower,  —  and  I 
saw  floral  displays  of  a  splendor  to  bankrupt 
all  description,  —  was  a  boy  whom  I  met 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  83 

one  Sunday  morning  in  a  steep,  disused 
road  outside  of  the  town.  I  was  descend- 
ing the  hill,  picking  my  steps,  and  he  was 
coming  up.  Eleven  or  twelve  years  old  he 
might  have  been,  cleanly  dressed,  fit  for  any 
company,  but  bare-legged  to  the  knee.  I 
wished  him  good-morning,  and  he  resjDonded 
with  the  easiest  grace  imaginable.  "  You 
are  going  to  church  ?  "  said  I.  "  Yes,  sir," 
and  on  he  went  up  the  hill,  "  progressing 
by  his  own  brave  steps ;  "  a  boy,  as  Thoreau 
says,  who  was  "never  drawn  in  a  willow 
wagon ; "  straight  as  an  arrow,  and  with 
motions  so  elastic,  so  full  of  the  very  spirit 
of  youth  and  health,  that  I  stood  still  and 
gazed  after  him  for  pure  delight.  His  face, 
his  speech,  his  manner,  his  carriage,  all  were 
in  keeping.  If  he  does  not  make  a  good 
and  happy  man,  it  will  be  an  awful  tragedy. 
This  boy  was  not  a  "  cracker's  "  child,  I 
think.  Probably  he  belonged  to  one  of  the 
Northern  families,  that  make  up  the  village 
for  the  most  part,  and  have  settled  the 
country  sparsely  for  a  few  miles  round  about. 
The  lot  of  the  native  mountaineers  is  hard 
and  pinched,  and  although  flocks  of  children 
were    playing    happily   enough   about    the 


84  NORTH  CAHOLINA 

cabin  doors,  it  was  impossible  not  to  look 
upon  them  as  born  to  a  narrow  and  cheerless 
existence.  Possibly  the  fault  was  partly  in 
myself,  since  I  have  no  very  easy  gift  with 
strangers,  but  I  found  them,  young  and  old 
alike,  rather  uncommunicative. 

I  recall  a  family  group  that  I  overtook 
toward  the  end  of  an  afternoon ;  a  father 
and  mother,  both  surprisingly  young-looking, 
hardly  out  of  their  teens,  it  seemed  to  me, 
with  a  boy  of  perhaps  six  years.  They  were 
resting  by  the  roadside  as  I  came  up,  the 
father  poring  over  some  written  document. 
"  You  must  have  been  to  the  city,"  said  I ; 
but  all  the  man  could  answer  was  "■  Howdy." 
The  woman  smiled  and  murmured  some- 
thing, it  was  impossible  to  tell  what.  They 
started  on  again  at  that  moment,  the  grown 
people  each  with  a  heavy  bag,  which  looked 
as  if  it  might  contain  meal  or  flour,  and  the 
little  fellow  with  a  big  bundle.  They  had 
four  miles  still  to  go,  they  said  ;  and  the 
road,  as  I  could  see  for  myself,  was  of  the 
very  worst,  steep  and  rugged  to  the  last 
degree.  Partly  to  see  if  I  could  conquer 
the  man,  and  partly  to  please  myself,  I  beck- 
oned the  youngster  to  my  side  and  put   a 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  85 

coin  into  his  hand.  The  shot  took  effect  at 
once.  Father  and  mother  found  their  voices, 
and  said  in  the  same  breath,  "  Say  thank 
you  !  "  How  natural  that  sounded  !  It  is 
part  of  the  universal  language.  Every  par- 
ent will  have  his  child  polite.  But  the  boy, 
poor  thing,  was  utterly  tongue-tied,  and 
could  only  smile  ;  which,  after  all,  was  about 
the  best  thing  he  could  have  done.  The 
father,  too,  was  still  inclined  to  silence,  find- 
ing nothing  in  particular  to  say,  though  I 
did  my  best  to  encourage  him  ;  but  he  took 
pains  to  keep  along  with  me,  halting  when- 
ever I  did  so,  and  making  it  manifest  that 
he  meant  to  be  with  me  at  the  turn  in  the 
road,  about  which  I  had  inquired  (needlessly, 
there  is  no  harm  in  my  now  confessing),  so 
that  I  should  by  no  possibility  go  astray. 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  friendly,  and 
at  the  corner  both  he  and  his  wife  bade  me 
good-by  with  simple  heartiness.  "  Good-by, 
little  boy,"  said  I.  "  Tell  him  good-by," 
called  both  father  and  mother ;  but  the  boy 
could  n't,  and  there  was  an  end  of  it.  "  He  's 
just  as  I  was  at  his  age  ;  bashful,  that 's  all." 
This  little  speech  set  matters  right.  The 
parents  smiled,  the  boy  did  likewise,  and  we 


86  NORTH  CAROLINA 

went  our  different  ways,  I  still  pitying  the 
woman,  with  that  heavy  bag  under  her  arm, 
having  to  make  a  packhorse  of  herself  on 
that  tiresome  mountain  road. 

However,  it  is  the  mountain  woman's  way 
to  do  her  full  share  of  the  hard  work,  as  I 
was  soon  to  see  farther  exemplified ;  for 
within  half  a  mile  I  heard  in  front  of  me 
the  grating  of  a  saw,  and  presently  came 
upon  another  family  group,  in  the  woods  on 
the  mountain  side,  —  a  woman,  three  chil- 
dren, and  a  dog.  The  woman,  no  longer 
young,  as  we  say  in  the  language  of  compli- 
ment, was  at  one  end  of  a  cross-cut  saw,  and 
the  largest  boy,  ten  or  eleven  years  old,  was 
at  the  other.  They  were  getting  to  pieces 
a  huge  fallen  trunk.  "  Wood  ought  to  be 
cheap  in  this  country,"  said  I ;  and  the 
woman,  as  she  and  the  boy  changed  hands  to 
rest  themselves,  answered  that  it  was.  In 
my  heart  I  thought  she  was  paying  dearly 
for  it ;  but  her  voice  was  cheerful,  and  the 
whole  company  was  almost  a  merry  one,  the 
younger  children  laughing  at  their  play,  and 
the  dog  capering  about  them  in  high  spirits. 
The  mountain  family  may  be  poor,  but  not 
with  the  degrading,  squalid  poverty  of  dwell- 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  87 

ers  yi  a  city  slum  ;  and  at  the  very  worst  the 
children  have  a  royal  playground. 

Mountain  boys,  certainly,  I  could  never 
much  pity ;  for  the  girls  it  was  impossible 
not  to  wish  easier  and  more  generous  condi- 
tions. Here  at  Stewart's  Pond  I  detained 
two  of  them  for  a  minute's  talk :  sisters,  I 
judged,  the  taller  one  ten  years  old,  or  there- 
about. I  asked  them  if  there  were  many 
fish  in  the  pond.  The  older  one  thought 
there  were.  "  I  know  my  daddy  ketched 
five  hundred  and  put  in  there  for  Mr.  Stew- 
art," she  said.  Just  then  the  younger  girl 
pulled  her  sister's  sleeve  and  pointed  toward 
two  snakes  which  lay  sunning  themselves  on 
the  edge  of  the  water,  where  a  much  larger 
one  had  shortly  before  slipped  off  a  log  into 
the  pond  at  my  approach.  "  They  do  no 
harm  ?  "  said  I.  "  No,  sir,  I  don't  guess 
they  do,"  was  the  answer ;  a  strange-sound- 
ing form  of  speech,  though  it  is  exactly  like 
the  "  I  don't  think  so  "  of  which  we  all  con- 
tinue to  make  hourly  use,  no  matter  how 
often  some  crotchety  amateur  grammarian  — 
for  whom  logic  is  logic,  and  who  hates  idiom 
as  a  mad  dog  hates  water  —  may  write  to  the 
newspapers  warning  us  of  its  impropriety. 


88  NORTH  CAROLINA 

Then  the  girls,  barefooted,  both  of  them, 
turned  into  a  bushy  trail  so  narrow  tKat  it 
had  escaped  my  notice,  and  disappeared  in 
the  woods.  I  thought  of  the  villainous-look- 
ing rattlesnake  that  I  had  seen  the  day  be- 
fore, freshly  killed  and  tossed  upon  the  side 
of  the  road,  within  a  hundred  rods  of  this 
point,  and  of  the  surprise  expressed  by  a 
resident  of  the  town  at  my  wandering  about 
the  country  without  leggins. 

As  to  the  question  of  snakes  and  the  dan- 
ger from  them,  the  people  here,  as  is  true 
everywhere  in  a  rattlesnake  country,  held 
widely  different  opinions.  Everybody  recog- 
nized the  presence  of  the  pest,  and  most  per- 
sons, whatever  their  own  practice  might  be, 
advised  a  measure  of  caution  on  the  part  of 
strangers.  One  thing  was  agreed  to  on  all 
hands :  whoever  saw  a  "  rattler  "  was  in  duty 
bound  to  make  an  end  of  it ;  and  one  man 
told  me  a  little  story  by  way  of  illustrating 
the  spirit  of  the  community  upon  this  point. 
A  woman  (not  a  mountain  woman)  was  rid- 
ing into  town,  when  her  horse  suddenly 
stopped  and  sliied.  In  the  road,  directly 
before  her,  a  snake  was  coiled,  rattling  de- 
fiance.    The  woman  dismounted,  hitched  the 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  89 

frightened  horse  to  a  sapling,  cut  a  switch, 
killed  the  snake,  threw  it  out  of  the  road, 
remounted,  and  went  on  about  her  business. 
It  is  one  advantage  of  life  in  wild  surround- 
ings that  it  encourages  self-reliance. 

In  all  places,  nevertheless,  and  under  all 
conditions,  human  nature  remains  a  para- 
doxical compound.  A  mountain  woman, 
while  ploughing,  came  into  close  quarters 
with  a  rattlesnake.  To  save  herself  she 
sprang  backward,  fell  against  a  stone,  and  in 
the  fall  broke  her  wrist.  No  doctor  being 
within  call,  she  set  the  bone  herself,  made 
and  adjusted  a  rude  splint,  and  now,  as  the 
lady  who  told  me  the  story  expressed  it, 
"  has  a  pretty  good  arm."  That  was  plucky. 
But  the  same  woman  suffered  from  an  aching 
tooth  some  time  afterward,  and  was  advised 
to  have  it  extracted.  She  would  do  no  such 
thing.  She  could  n't.  She  had  a  tooth 
pulled  once,  and  it  hurt  her  so  that  she 
would  never  do  it  again. 

Anthropology  and  ornithology  were  very 
agreeably  mingled  for  me  on  the  Hamburg 
road,  —  though  it  seems  impossible  for  me 
to  stay  there,  the  reader  may  say,  —  where 
passers-by  were  frequent  enough  to  keep  me 


90  NORTH  CAROLINA 

from  feeling  lonesome,  and  yet  not  so  numer- 
ous as  to  disturb  the  quiet  of  the  place  or 
interfere  unduly  with  my  natural  historical 
researches.  The  human  interview  to  which 
I  look  back  with  most  pleasure  was  with  a 
pair  of  elderly  people  who  appeared  one 
morning  in  an  open  buggy.  They  were 
driving  from  the  town,  seated  side  by  side 
in  the  shadow  of  a  big  umbrella,  and  as  they 
overtook  me,  on  the  bridge,  the  man  said 
"  Good-morning,"  of  course,  and  then,  to  my 
surprise,  pulled  up  his  horse  and  inquired 
particularly  after  my  health.  He  hoped  I 
was  recovering  from  my  indisposition,  though 
I  am  not  sure  that  he  used  that  rather  super- 
fine word.  I  gave  him  a  favorable  account 
of  myself,  —  wondering  all  the  while  how 
he  knew  I  had  been  ill,  —  whereupon  he 
expressed  the  greatest  satisfaction,  and  his 
good  wife  smiled  in  sympathy.  Then,  after 
a  word  or  two  about  the  beauty  of  the  morn- 
ing, and  while  I  was  still  trying  to  guess 
who  the  couple  could  be,  the  man  gathered 
up  the  reins  with  the  remark,  "  I  'm  going 
after  some  Ilex  moiiticola  for  Charley." 
"Yes,  I  know  where  it  is,"  he  added,  in 
response  to  a  question.     Then  I  knew  him. 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  91 

I  had  been  at  his  house  a  few  eveninjrs  be- 
fore  to  see  his  son,  who  had  come  home  from 
Biltmore  to  collect  certain  rare  local  plants 
—  the  mountain  holly  being  one  of  them  — 
for  the  Vanderbilt  herbarium.  The  mystery 
was  cleared,  but  it  may  be  imagined  how 
taken  aback  I  was  when  this  venerable  rus- 
tic stranger  threw  a  Latin  name  at  me. 

In  truth,  however,  botany  and  Latin  names 
might  almost  be  said  to  be  in  the  air  at 
Highlands.  A  villager  met  me  in  the  street, 
one  day,  and  almost  before  I  knew  it,  we 
were  discussing  the  specific  identity  of  the 
small  yellow  lady's-slippers,  —  whether  there 
were  two  species,  or,  as  my  new  acquaintance 
believed,  only  one,  in  the  woods  round  about. 
At  another  time,  having  called  at  a  very 
pretty  unpainted  cottage,  —  all  the  prettier 
for  the  natural  color  of  the  weathered  shin- 
gles, —  I  remarked  to  the  lady  of  the  house 
upon  the  beauty  of  Azalea  Vaseyi,  which  I 
had  noticed  in  several  dooryards,  and  which 
was  said  to  have  been  transplanted  from  the 
woods.  I  did  not  understand  why  it  was,  I 
told  her,  but  I  could  n't  find  it  described  in 
my  Chapman's  Flora.  ''  Oh,  it  is  there,  I 
am  sure  it  is,"  she  answered ;  and  going  into 


92  NORTH  CAROLINA 

the  next  room  she  brought  out  a  copy  of  the 
manual,  turned  to  the  page,  and  showed  me 
the  name.  It  was  in  the  supplement,  where 
in  my  haste  I  had  overlooked  it.  I  won- 
dered how  often,  in  a  New  England  country 
village,  a  stranger  could  happen  into  a  house, 
painted  or  unpainted,  and  by  any  chance 
find  the  mistress  of  it  prepared  to  set  him 
right  on  a  question  of  local  botany. 

On  a  later  occasion  —  for  thus  encouraged 
I  called  more  than  once  afterward  at  the 
same  house  —  the  lady  handed  me  an  orchid. 
I  might  be  interested  in  it ;  it  was  not  very 
common,  she  believed.  I  looked  at  it,  think- 
in  2:  at  first  that  I  had  never  seen  it  before. 
Then  I  seemed  to  remember  something. 
"  Is  it  Pogonia  verticillataf  "  I  asked.  She 
smiled,  and  said  it  was ;  and  when  I  told  her 
that  to  the  best  of  my  recollection  I  had 
never  seen  more  than  one  specimen  before, 
and  that  upwards  of  twenty  years  ago  (a 
specimen  from  Blue  Hill,  Massachusetts), 
she  insisted  upon  believing  that  I  must  have 
an  extraordinary  botanical  memory,  though 
of  course  she  did  not  put  the  compliment 
thus  baldly,  but  dressed  it  in  some  graceful, 
unanswerable,  feminine  phrase  which  I,  for 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  93 

all  my  imaginary  mnemonic  powers,  have 
long  ago  forgotten. 

The  same  lady  had  the  rare  Shortia  gala- 
cifolla  growing  —  transplanted  —  in  her 
grounds,  and  her  husband  volunteered  to 
show  me  one  of  the  few  places  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Highlands  (this,  too,  on  his  own 
land)  where  the  true  lily-of-the-valley  — 
identical  with  the  European  plant  of  our 
gardens — grows  wild.  It  was  something  I 
had  greatly  desired  to  see,  and  was  now  in 
bloom.  Still  another  man  —  but  he  was 
only  a  summer  cottager  —  took  me  to  look 
at  a  specimen  of  the  Carolina  hemlock 
(^Tsiiga  Caroliniana)^  a  tree  of  the  very 
existence  of  which  I  had  before  been  igno- 
rant. The  truth  is  that  the  region  is  most 
exceptionally  rich  in  its  flora,  and  the  peo- 
ple, to  their  honor  be  it  recorded,  are  equally 
exceptional  in  that  they  appreciate  the  fact. 

A  small  magnolia-tree  (J/.  Fraseri)^  in 
bloom  everywhere  along  the  brooksides,  did 
not  attract  me  to  any  special  degree  till  one 
day,  in  an  idle  hour  at  Stewart's  Pond,  I 
plucked  a  half-open  bud.  I  thought  I  had 
never  known  so  rare  a  fragrance ;  delicate 
and  wholesome  beyond  comparison,  and  yet 


94  NORTH  CAROLINA 

most  deliciously  rich  and  fruity,  a  perfume 
for  the  gods.  The  leaf,  too,  now  that  I  came 
really  to  look  at  it,  was  of  an  elegant  shape 
and  texture,  untoothed,  but  with  a  beautiful 
"  auriculated  "  base,  as  Latin-loving  bota- 
nists say,  from  which  the  plant  derives  its 
vernacular  name,  —  the  ear-leaved  umbrella- 
tree.  The  waxy  blossoms  seemed  to  be  quite 
scentless,  but  I  wished  that  Thoreau,  whose 
nose  was  as  good  as  his  eyes  and  his  ears, 
could  have  smelled  of  the  buds. 

The  best  thing  that  I  found  at  the  pond, 
however,  by  long  odds  the  most  interesting 
and  unexpected  thing  that  I  found  anywhere 
in  North  Carolina  (I  speak  as  a  hobbyist), 
was  neither  a  tree  nor  a  human  being,  but  a 
bird.  I  had  been  loitering  along  the  river- 
bank  just  above  the  pond  itself,  admiring 
the  magnolias,  the  silver-bell  trees,  the  lofty 
hemlocks,  —  out  of  the  depths  of  which  a 
"  mountain  boomer,"  known  to  simple  North- 
ern folk  as  a  red  squirrel,  now  and  then 
emitted  his  saucy  chatter,  —  and  the  Indi- 
an's paint-brush  (scarlet  painted-cup),  the 
brightest  and  among  the  most  characteristic 
and  memorable  of  the  woodland  flowers ; 
listening  to  the  shouts  of  an  olive-sided  fly- 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  95 

catcher  and  the  music  of  the  frogs,  one  of 
them  a  regular  Karl  Formes  for  profundity  ; 
and  in  general  waiting  to  see  what  would 
happen.  Nothing  of  special  importance 
seemed  likely  to  reward  my  diligent  idleness, 
and  I  turned  back  toward  the  town.  On  the 
way  I  halted  at  the  bridge,  as  I  always  did, 
and  presently  a  carriage  drove  over  it.  In- 
side sat  a  woman  under  an  enormous  black 
sunbonnet.  She  did  me,  without  knowing 
it,  a  kindness,  and  I  should  be  glad  to  thank 
her.  As  the  wheels  of  the  carriage  struck 
the  plank  bridge,  a  bird  started  into  sight 
from  under  it  or  close  beside  it.  A  sand- 
piper, I  thought ;  but  the  next  moment  it 
dropped  into  the  water  and  began  swim- 
ming. Then  I  knew  it  for  a  bird  I  had 
never  seen  before,  and,  better  still,  a  bird 
belonging  to  a  family  of  which  I  had  never 
seen  any  representative,  a  bird  which  had 
never  for  an  instant  entered  into  my  North 
Carolina  calcidations.  It  was  a  phalarope, 
a  wanderer  from  afar,  blown  out  of  its  course, 
perhaps,  and  lying  by  for  a  day  in  this  little 
mountain  pond,  almost  four  thousand  feet 
above  sea  level. 

My  first  concern,  as  I  recovered  myself, 


96  NORTH  CAROLINA 

was  to  set  down  in  black  and  white  a  com- 
plete account  of  the  stranger's  plumage  ;  for 
though  I  knew  it  for  a  phalarope,  I  must 
wait  to  consult  a  book  before  naming  it  more 
specifically.  It  would  have  contributed  un- 
speakably to  my  peace  of  mind,  just  then, 
had  I  been  better  informed  about  the  dis- 
tinctive peculiarities  of  the  three  species 
which  compose  the  phalarope  family;  as  I 
certainly  would  have  been,  had  I  received 
any  premonition  of  what  was  in  store  for 
me.  As  it  was,  I  must  make  sure  of  every 
possible  detail,  lest  in  my  ignorance  I  should 
overlook  some  apparently  trivial  item  that 
might  prove,  too  late,  to  be  all  important. 
So  I  fell  to  work,  noting  the  white  lower 
cheek  (or  should  I  call  it  the  side  of  the 
upper  neck?),  the  black  stripe  through  and 
behind  the  eye,  the  white  line  just  over  the 
eye,  the  light-colored  crown,  the  rich  reddish 
brown  of  the  nape  and  the  sides  of  the  neck, 
the  white  or  gray-white  under  parts,  the 
plain  (unbarred)  wings,  and  so  on.  The 
particulars  need  not  be  rehearsed  here.  I 
was  possessed  by  a  recollection,  or  half  recol- 
lection, that  the  marginal  membrane  of  the 
toes  was  a  prime  mark  of  distinction  (as 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  97 

indeed  it  is,  though  the  only  manual  I  had 
brought  with  me  turned  out  not  to  mention 
the  point)  ;  but  while  for  much  of  the  time 
the  bird's  feet  were  visible,  it  never  for  so 
much  as  a  second  held  them  still,  and  as  the 
water  was  none   too  clear  and   the   bottom 
muddy,  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  see  how 
the  toes  were  webbed,  or  even  to  be  certain 
that  they  were  webbed  at  all.     Once,  as  the 
bird  was  close  to  the  shore,  and  almost  at 
my  feet,  I  crouched  upon  a  log,  thinking  to 
pick  the  creature  up  and  examine  it ;  but  it 
moved  quietly  away  for  a  yard  or  so,  just 
out  of  reach,  and  though  I  could  probably 
have  killed  it  with  a  stick,  —  as  a  friend  of 
mine  killed  one  some  years  ago  on  a  moun- 
tain lake  in  New  Hampshire,^  —  it  was  hap- 
pily too  late  when  the  possibility  of  such  a 
step  occurred  to  me.      By  that  time  I  was 
not  on  collecting  terms  with  the  bird.     It 
was  "  not  born  for  death,"  I  thought,  or,  if 
it  was,  I  was  not  born  to  play  the  execu- 
tioner. 

Its  activity  was  amazing.  If  I  had  not 
known  this  to  be  natural  to  the  phalarope 
family,  I  might  have  thought  the  poor  thing 

^  The  case  is  recorded  in  The  Auk,  vol.  vi.  page  68. 


98  NORTH  CAROLINA 

on  the  verge  of  starvation,  eating  for  dear 
life.  It  moved  its  head  from  side  to  side 
incessantly,  dabbing  the  water  with  its  bill 
picking  something,  —  minute  insects,  I  sup- 
posed, —  from  the  surface,  or  swimming 
among  the  loose  grass,  and  running  its  bill 
down  the  green  blades  one  after  another. 
Several  times,  in  its  eagerness  to  capture  a 
passing  insect,  it  almost  flew  over  the  water, 
and  once  it  actually  took  wing  for  a  stroke 
or  two,  with  some  quick,  breathless  notes, 
like  cut,  cut,  cut.  One  thing  was  certain,  it 
did  not  care  for  polliwogs,  shoals  of  which 
darted  about  its  feet  unmolested. 

Once  a  horseman  frightened  it  as  he  rode 
over  the  bridge,  but  even  then  it  barely  rose 
from  the  water  with  a  startled  ylj).  The 
man  glanced  at  it  (I  was  just  then  looking 
carelessly  in  another  direction),  and  passed 
on  —  to  my  relief.  At  that  moment  the 
most  interesting  mountaineer  in  North  Car- 
olina would  have  found  me  unresponsive. 
As  for  my  own  presence,  the  phalarope 
seemed  hardly  to  notice  it,  though  I  stood 
much  of  the  time  within  a  distance  of  ten 
feet,  and  now  and  then  considerably  nearer 
than  that,  —  without  so  much  as  a  grass- 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  99 

blade  for  cover,  —  holding  my  glass  upon  it 
steadily  till  a  stitch  in  my  side  made  the  at- 
titude all  but  intolerable.  The  lovely  bird 
rode  the  water  in  the  lightest  possible  man- 
ner, and  was  easily  put  about  by  slight  puffs 
of  wind ;  but  it  could  turn  upon  an  insect 
with  lightning  quickness.  It  was  never  still 
for  an  instant  except  on  two  occasions,  when 
it  came  close  to  the  shore  and  sat  motionless 
in  the  lee  of  a  log.  There  it  crouched  upon 
its  feet,  which  were  still  under  water,  and 
seemed  to  be  resting.  It  preened  its  feath- 
ers, also,  and  once  it  rubbed  its  bill  down 
with  its  claw,  but  the  motion  was  too  quick 
for  my  eye  to  follow,  though  I  was  near 
enough  to  see  the  nostril  with  perfect  dis- 
tinctness. 

I  was  in  love  with  the  bird  from  the  first 
minute.  Its  tameness,  the  elegance  of  its 
shape  and  plumage,  the  grace  and  vivacity 
of  its  movements,  these  of  themselves  were 
enough  to  drive  a  bird-lover  wild.  Add  to 
them  its  novelty  and  unexpectedness,  and 
the  reader  may  judge  for  himself  of  my 
state  of  mind.  It  was  the  dearest  and  tam- 
est creature  I  had  ever  seen,  I  kept  saying 
to  myself,  forgetful  for  the  moment  of  two 


100  NOBTH  CABOLINA 

blue-headed  vireos  which  at  different  times 
had  allowed  me  to  stroke  and  feed  them  as 
they  sat  brooding  on  their  eggs. 

Another  thing  I  must  mention,  as  adding 
not  a  little  to  the  pleasure  of  the  hour. 
The  moment  I  set  eyes  upon  the  phalarope, 
before  I  had  taken  even  a  mental  note  of 
its  plumage,  I  thought  of  my  friend  and  cor- 
respondent, Celia  Thaxter,  and  of  her  eager 
inquiries  about  the  "  bay  bird,"  which  she 
had  then  seen  for  the  first  time  at  the  Isles 
of  Shoals  — "just  like  a  sandpiper,  only 
smaller,  and  swimming  on  the  water  like  a 
duck."  And  as  the  bird  before  me  darted 
hither  and  thither,  so  amazingly  agile,  I  re- 
membered her  pretty  description  of  this  very 
trait,  a  description  which  I  here  copy  from 
her  letter :  — 

"  He  was  swimming  about  the  wharf  near 
the  landing,  a  pretty,  dainty  creature,  in 
soft  shades  of  gray  and  white,  with  the 
*  needle-like  beak,'  and  a  rapidity  of  motion 
that  I  have  never  seen  equaled  in  any  living 
thing  except  a  darting  dragon-fly  or  some 
restless  insect.  He  was  never  for  one  in- 
stant still,  darting  after  his  food  on  the 
surface  of  the  water.     He  seemed  perfectly 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  101 

tame,  was  n't  the  least  afraid  of  anything  or 
anybody,  merely  moving  aside  to  avoid  an 
oar-blade,  and  swaying  almost  on  to  the 
rocks  with  the  swirl  of  the  water.  I  watched 
him  till  I  was  tired,  and  went  away  and  left 
him  there  still  cheerfully  frisking.  I  am  so 
glad  to  tell  you  of  something  you  have  n't 
seen ! " 

A  year  afterward  (May  29,  1892),  she 
wrote  again,  with  equal  enthusiasm :  "If  I 
only  had  a  house  of  my  own  here  I  should 
make  a  business  of  trying  desperately  hard 
to  bring  you  here,  if  only  for  one  of  your 
spare  Sundays,  to  see  the  '  bay  birds  '  that 
have  been  round  here  literally  by  the  thou- 
sands for  the  last  month,  the  swimming 
sandpipers  —  so  beautiful !  In  great  flocks 
that  wheel  and  turn,  and,  flying  in  long 
masses  over  the  water,  show  now  dark,  now 
dazzling  silver  as  they  careen  and  show  the 
white  lining  of  their  wings,  like  a  long,  bril- 
liant, fluttering  ribbon.  I  never  heard  of  so 
many  before,  about  here." 

The  birds  seen  at  the  Isles  of  Shoals  were 
doubtless  either  red  phalaropes  or  northern 
phalaropes,  —  or,  not  unlikely,  both,  —  "  sea 
snipe,"  they  are  often  called;  two  pelagic, 


102  NORTH  CAROLINA 

circumpolar  species,  the  presence  of  which 
in  unusual  numbers  off  our  Atlantic  coast 
was  recorded  by  other  observers  in  the 
spring  of  1892.  My  bird  here  in  North 
Carolina,  if  I  read  its  characters  correctly, 
was  of  the  third  species  of  the  family,  Wil- 
son's phalarope,  larger  and  handsomer  than 
the  others ;  an  inland  bird,  peculiar  to  the 
American  continent,  breeding  in  the  upper 
Mississippi  Valley  and  farther  north,  and 
occurring  in  our  Eastern  country  only  as  a 
straggler. 

That  was  a  lucky  hour,  an  hour  worth  a 
long  journey,  and  worthy  of  long  remem- 
brance. It  brought  me,  as  I  began  by  say- 
ing, a  new  bird  and  a  new  family ;  a  family 
distinguished  not  more  for  its  grace  and 
beauty  than  for  the  strangeness  —  the  "  new- 
ness," as  to-day's  word  is  —  of  its  domestic 
relations ;  for  the  female  phalarope  not  only 
dresses  more  handsomely  than  the  male,  but 
is  larger,  and  in  a  general  way  assumes  the 
rights  of  superiority.  She  does  the  court- 
ing—  openly  and  ostensibly,  I  mean  —  and, 
if  the  books  are  to  be  trusted,  leaves  to 
her  mate  the  homely,  plumage-dulling  labor 
of  sitting  upon  the  eggs.     And  why  not? 


A  MOUNTAIN  POND  103 

Nature  has  made  her  a  queen,  and  dowered 
her  with  queenly  prerogatives,  one  of  which, 
by  universal  consent,  is  the  right  to  choose 
for  herself  the  father  of  her  royal  children. 

Like  Mrs.  Thaxter,  I  stayed  with  my  bird 
till  I  was  tired  with  watching  such  preter- 
natural activity;  and  the  next  day  I  re- 
turned to  the  place,  hoping  to  tire  myself 
again  in  the  same  delightful  manner.  But 
the  phalarope  was  no  longer  there.  Up  and 
down  the  road  I  went,  scanning  the  edges  of 
the  pond,  but  the  bird  had  flown.  I  wished 
her  safely  over  the  mountains,  and  a  mate 
to  her  heart's  liking  at  the  end  of  the  jour- 
ney. 


BIRDS,  FLOWERS,  AND  PEOPLE 

"  I  'd  rather  do  anything  than  to  pack," 
said  a  North  Carolina  mountain  man.  His 
tone  bespoke  a  fullness  of  experience  ;  as  if 
a  farm-bred  Yankee  were  to  say,  "  I  'd  rather 
do  anything  than  to  pick  stones  in  cold 
weather."  He  had  found  me  talking  with  a 
third  man  by  the  wayside  on  a  sultry  fore- 
noon. The  third  man  carried  a  bag  of  corn 
on  his  back,  and  was  on  his  way  from  Horse 
Cove  to  Highlands  (valleys  are  coves  in  that 
part  of  the  South),  up  the  long  steep  moun- 
tain side  down  which,  with  frequent  stops 
for  admiration  of  the  world  below,  I  had 
been  lazily  traveling.  He  was  sick,  he  told 
me ;  and  as  his  appearance  corroborated  his 
words,  I  had  been  trying  to  persuade  him  to 
leave  his  load  where  it  was,  trust  its  safety 
to  Providence,  and  go  home.  Just  then  it 
happened  that  mountaineer  number  two 
came  along  and  delivered  himself  as  above 
quoted. 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     105 

He  was  going  to  Highlands,  also.  He  had 
been  "  putting  in  a  week  "  trying  to  buy  a 
cow  to  replace  one  that  had  mired  herself 
and  broken  her  neck.  "  I  would  rather 
have  paid  down  twenty-five  dollars  in  gold," 
he  declared.  (The  air  was  full  of  political 
silver  talk  ;  but  gold  is  the  standard,  after 
all,  when  men  come  to  business.)  He  knew 
the  invalid,  it  appeared,  for  presently  he 
turned  into  a  trail,  a  short  cut  through  the 
w^oods,  which  till  now  had  escaped  my  notice, 
and  remarked,  "  Well,  John,  I  guess  I  '11 
take  the  narrow  way  ;  "  and  off  he  went  up 
the  slope,  while  the  other  man  and  I  con- 
tinued our  dialogue,  —  I  still  playing  the 
part  of  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  and  Chris- 
tian still  unconvinced,  but  not  indisposed  to 
parley. 

He  wished  to  know  where  I  had  come 
from  ;  and  when  I  told  him,  he  said,  "  Mas- 
sachusetts !  Well,  I  reckon  it 's  right  hot 
down  there  now."  He  held  the  conmion 
belief  of  the  mountain  people  that  the  rest 
of  the  earth's  surface  is  mostly  uninhabitable 
in  summer-time.  One  morning,  I  remember, 
I  said  something  to  an  idler  on  the  village 
sidewalk  about  the  cool  night  we  had  just 


106  NOBTH  CAROLINA 

passed.  I  meant  my  little  speech  as  a  kind 
of  local  compliment,  but  he  took  me  up  at 
once.  It  was  "  pretty  hot,"  he  thought,  — 
about  as  hot  a  night  as  he  ever  knew.  He 
did  n't  see  how  folks  lived  down  in  Charles- 
ton ;  and  I  partly  agreed  with  him.  He 
had  been  "horned  right  here,"  and  had 
never  been  farther  away  than  to  Seneca; 
and  from  his  manner  of  expressing  himseK 
I  inferred  that  he  hoped  never  to  find  him- 
self so  far  from  home  again.  This  was  in 
the  midst  of  a  "  heated  term,"  when  the 
mercury,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
registered  74°  on  the  hotel  piazza. 

However,  it  was  many  degrees  warmer 
than  that  in  Horse  Cove  (at  a  considerably 
lower  level)  on  the  day  of  which  I  am  writ- 
ing, and  a  sick  man  with  a  bag  of  corn  on 
his  back  had  good  reason  to  rest  halfway  up 
the  climb.  He  had  killed  "  a  pretty  rattle- 
snake "  a  little  way  back,  he  told  me. 
"  Very  dangerous  they  are,"  he  added,  with 
an  evident  kindly  desire  to  put  a  stranger 
on  his  guard.  As  we  separated,  a  man  on 
horseback  turned  a  corner  in  the  road  above 
us,  and  on  looking  round,  a  few  minutes 
later,  I  was  relieved  to  see  that  he  had  lent 


BIRDS,  FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     107 

the  pack-bearer  his  horse,  and  was  pursuing 
his  own  way  on  foot.  And  now  I  thought, 
not  of  Bunyan's  parable,  but  of  an  older 
and  better  one. 

Though  the  primary  interest  of  my  trip 
to  the  North  Carolina  mountains  was  rather 
with  the  fauna  and  flora  than  with  the  pop- 
ulation (as  we  call  it,  in  our  lofty  human 
way  of  speaking,  having  no  doubt  that  we 
are  the  people),  I  found,  first  and  last,  no 
small  pleasure  in  the  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, as  I  fell  in  with  them  out  of  doors  here 
and  there,  in  the  course  of  my  daily  peram- 
bulations. Poverty-cursed  as  they  looked 
(the  universal  "  packing "  by  both  sexes 
over  those  up-and-down  roads,  and  the  shift- 
less, comfortless  appearance  of  the  cabins, 
were  proof  enough  of  a  pinched  estate),  they 
seemed  to  be  laudably  industrious,  and,  as 
the  world  goes,  enjoyers  of  life.  If  they 
said  little,  it  was  perhaps  rather  my  fault 
than  theirs  (the  key  must  fit  the  lock),  and 
certainly  they  treated  me  with  nothing  but 
kindness. 

More  than  a  fortnight  after  my  interview 
with  the  invalid,  just  described,  I  was  re- 
turning to  the  hotel  from  an  early  morning 


108  NORTH  CAROLINA 

jaunt  down  the  Walhalla  road,  when  I  met 
a  man  driving  a  pair  of  dwarfish  steers 
hitched  to  a  pair  of  wheels,  on  the  axle-tree 
of  which  was  fastened  a  rude,  widely  ven- 
tilated, home-made  box,  with  an  odd-shaped, 
home-made  basket  hung  on  one  side  of  it,  — 
the  driver,  literally,  on  the  box.  I  greeted 
him,  and  he  pulled  up.  "  AYell,  I  see  you 
are  still  here,"  he  said,  after  a  good-morning. 
"You  have  seen  me  before?"  I  replied. 
He  was  sallow  and  thin,  —  the  usual  moun- 
taineer's condition,  —  but  wore  the  pleasant- 
est  of  smiles.  "  Yes  ;  I  saw  you  down  in 
the  Cove  with  the  sick  man."  He  was  the 
pilgrim  who  took  the  "narrow  way,"  and 
was  hunting  for  a  cow,  though  I  should  not 
have  remembered  him.  And  now,  peeping 
through  one  of  the  holes  in  the  box,  I  saw 
that  he  had  a  calf  inside.  "A  Jersey?" 
said  I.     "  Part  Jersey,"  he  answered.     Mr. 

S (one  of  the  villagers,  whom  by  this 

time  I  counted  as  a  friend,  a  white-haired, 
youngish  veteran  of  the  civil  war,  on  the 
Union  side,  a  neighbor  I  had  "  taken  to  " 

from  the  moment  I  saw  him),  Mr.  S 

had  given  the  calf  to  the  man's  father-in-law, 
and  he,  the  son-in-law,  had  driven  up  to  the 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     109 

village  to  fetch  it  home.  He  lived  about  six 
miles  out,  on  a  side  road.  I  inquired  about 
the  two  or  three  houses  in  sight  in  the  valley- 
clearing  below  us.  It  was  the  "  Webb 
settlement,"  he  said  ;  "  so  we  always  call  it.'* 
I  remarked  that  all  hands  seemed  to  have 
plenty  of  children.  "  Yes,  plenty  of  chil- 
dren," he  responded,  with  a  laugh ;  and  away 
he  drove. 

It  was  only  a  few  minutes  before  another 
man  appeared,  a  foot-passenger  this  time, 
walking  at  a  smart  pace,  with  an  umbrella 
on  his  shoulder,  and  a  new  pair  of  boots 
slung  across  it.  "  You  travel  faster  than  I 
do,"  said  I.  "  Yes,  sir,"  he  answered,  smil- 
ing (all  men  like  the  name  of  being  active), 
"  I  go  pretty  peert  when  I  go."  He,  too,  had 
six  miles  before  him,  and  believed  it  would 
"  begin  to  rain  after  a  bit."  It  would  have 
been  an  imposition  upon  good  nature  to 
detain  him.  There  was  a  bend  in  the  road 
just  below,  and  in  another  minute  I  heard 
him  spanking  round  it  at  a  lively  trot. 

Five  minutes  more,  and  a  second  pedes- 
trian hove  in  sight.  He,  likewise,  was  in 
haste.  "  You  are  all  in  a  hurry  to-day,"  I 
said  to  him.     I  was  in  pursuit  of  acquaint- 


110  NORTH  CAROLINA 

ance,  and  in  such  places  it  is  the  part  of 
wisdom,  and  of  good  manners  as  well,  to 
make  the  most  of  chance  opportunities. 
"  Yes,  sir,"  he  made  answer,  slackening  his 
pace  ;  "  I  want  to  get  my  road  done.  I  've 
got  till  Saturday,  and  I  want  to  get  it  done  ;  " 
and  he  put  on  steam  again,  and  was  gone. 
His  countenance  was  familiar,  but  I  could 
not  tell  where  I  had  seen  him,  —  one  of  the 
fathers  of  the  Webb  settlement,  perhaps. 
The  mountaineers,  all  thin,  all  light-com- 
plexioned,  and  all  wearing  the  same  drab 
homespun,  look  confusingly  alike  to  a  new- 
comer. Whoever  the  stranger  was,  he  had 
evidently  undertaken  to  build  some  part  of 
the  new  road,  and  was  returning  from  the 
village  with  supplies.  In  one  hand  he  car- 
ried two  heavy  drills,  and  under  the  other 
arm  a  strip  of  pork,  a  piece  of  brown  paper 
wrapped  about  the  middle  of  it,  and  the 
long  ends  dangling.  It  did  my  vacationer's 
heart  good  to  see  men  so  cheerfully  industri- 
ous ;  but  I  thought  it  a  reproach  to  the 
order  of  the  world  that  so  much  hard  work 
should  yield  so  little  of  comfort.  But  then, 
who  knows  which  was  the  more  comfortable, 
—  the  idle,  criticising  tourist  or  the  sweating 


BIRDS,  FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     111 

laborer?  For  the  time  being,  at  all  events, 
the  laborer  had  the  air  of  a  person  inwardly 
well  off.  A  mountain  man  with  a  "  con- 
tract "  was  not  likely  to  be  envious  even  of 
a  boarder  at  "  Mrs.  Davis's,"  as  the  hotel  is 
locally,  and  very  properly,  called. 

As  I  went  on,  passing  the  height  of  land 
and  beginning  my  descent  homeward,  I  met 
two  other  foot-passengers,  —  two  women  : 
one  old  and  fat,  —  the  only  fat  mountaineer 
of  either  sex  seen  in  North  Carolina,  —  with 
a  red  face  and  a  staff ;  the  other  young, 
slightly  built  and  pale,  carrying  an  old-fash- 
ioned shotgun  (the  ramrod  projecting)  over 
her  right  shoulder.  Both  wore  sunbonnets, 
and  the  younger  had  a  braid  of  hair  hanging 
down  her  back.  With  her  slender  figure, 
her  colorless  face,  her  serious  look,  and  the 
long  musket,  she  would  have  made  a  subject 
for  a  painter.  This  pair  I  could  think  of 
no  excuse  for  accosting,  much  as  I  should 
have  enjoyed  hearing  them  talk.^     Shortly 

1  On  a  different  road,  and  on  a  Sunday  morning-,  I  met 
a  young-  colored  woman,  —  an  unusual  sight,  colored  peo- 
ple heing  perscnce  non  grates  in  the  mountains.  M'e  bade 
each  other  good-morning,  as  Christians  should.  My  note- 
book, I  see,  records  her  as  dressed  in  her  best  clothes,  — 


112  NORTH  CAROLINA 

after  they  had  gone,  I  stopped  to  speak  with 
a  small  boy  who  was  climbing  the  hill,  with 
a  mewing  kitten  hugged  tightly  to  his  breast. 
He  was  taking  it  home  to  his  cat,  he  said. 
She  brought  in  mice  and  things,  and  wanted 
something  to  give  them  to.  The  little  fel- 
low was  still  young  enough  to  understand 
the  mother  instinct. 

That  was  a  truly  social  walk.  I  had 
never  before  found  one  of  the  mountain 
roads  half  so  populous.  Once,  indeed,  I 
drove  all  day  without  seeing  a  passenger  of 
any  sort,  until,  near  the  end  of  the  after- 
noon and  within  a  mile  or  two  of  the  town, 
I  met  a  solitary  horseman. 

The  neio  road,  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
and  concerning  which  I  heard  so  much  said 
on  all  hands,  was  really  not  quite  that,  but 
rather  a  new  laying  out  —  with  loops  here 
and  there  to  avoid  the  steeper  pitches  —  of 
the  road  from  Walhalla,  over  which  I  had 
driven  on  my  entrance  into  the  mountains. 

My  friend  Mr.  S had  made  the  surveys 

for  the  work,  and  the  whole  town  was  look- 
ing forward  eagerly  to  its  completion.     To- 

a  blue  gown,  I  think,  —  with  a  handsome  lig-ht-colored 
silk  parasol  in  one  hand,  and  a  tin  pail  in  the  other. 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     113 

ward  sunset,  on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  I  had 
been  out  of  the  village  in  an  opposite  direc- 
tion, and  was  sitting  by  the  wayside  in  the 
Stewart  woods,  full  of  flowers  and  music, 
where  I  loved  often  to  linger,  when  three 
men  approached  on  foot.  "  How  far  have 
you  come  ?  "  I  inquired.  ''  From  Franklin," 
—  about  twenty  miles  distant,  —  they  an- 
swered. They  were  going  to  work  "  on  the 
new  road  up  at  Stooly "  (Satulah  Moun- 
tain), or  so  I  understood  the  oldest  of  the 
trio,  who  acted  throughout  as  spokesman. 
(In  my  part  of  the  country  it  is  only  the 
professionally  idle  who  walk  twenty  miles 
at  a  stretch.)  "Well,"  said  I,  none  too 
politely,  being  nothing  but  an  outsider, 
"  I  hope  you  '11  make  it  better  than  it  was 
when  I  came  up."  He  replied,  quite  good- 
humoredly,  that  they  were  making  a  good 
road  of  it  this  time.  And  so  they  were, 
comparatively  speaking,  for  I  went  over  the 
mountain  one  day  on  purpose  to  see  it,  after  I 
knew  who  had  laid  it  out,  and  had  begun  to 
feel  a  personal  interest  in  its  success.  One 
of  the  men  carried  a  hoe,  and  one  a  small 
tin  clock.  They  had  no  other  baggage,  I 
think.     When  a  man  works  on  the  road,  he 


114  NORTH  CAROLINA 

needs  a  hoe  to  work  with,  and  a  timepiece 
to  tell  him  when  to  begin  and  when  to  leave 
off.  So  I  thought  to  myself ;  but  I  am 
bound  to  add  that  these  workmen  seemed  to 
be  going  to  their  task  as  if  it  were  a  privi- 
lege. It  eases  labor  to  feel  that  one  is  doing 
a  good  job.  That  makes  the  difference,  so 
we  used  to  be  told,  by  Carlyle  or  some  one 
else,  between  an  artist  and  an  artisan ;  and 
I  see  no  reason  why  such  encouraging  dis- 
tinctions should  not  apply  to  road-menders 
as  well  as  to  menders  of  philosophy.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  drudgery,  even  for  a  man 
with  a  hoe,  so  long  as  quality  is  the  end  in 
view. 

Whatever  else  was  to  be  said  of  the  roads 
hereabout,  —  and  the  question  is  of  para- 
mount importance  in  such  a  country,  where 
mails  and  supplies  must  be  transported 
thirty  miles  (a  two  days'  journey  for  loaded 
wagons),  —  they  were  almost  ideally  perfect 
from  a  walking  naturalist's  point  of  view; 
neither  sandy  nor  muddy,  the  two  evils  of 
Southern  roads  in  general,  and  conducting 
the  traveler  at  once  into  wild  arid  shady 
places.  The  village  is  closely  built,  and  no 
matter   in   which  direction   I    turned,   the 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE      115 

houses  were  quickly  behind  me,  and  1  was 
as  truly  in  the  woods  as  if  I  had  made  a 
day's  march  from  civilization.  A  straggling 
town,  with  miles  of  outlying  farms  and  pas- 
turelands,  through  the  sunny  stretches  of 
which  a  man  must  make  his  way  forenoon 
and  afternoon,  is  a  state  of  things  at  once  so 
usual  and  so  disheartening  that  the  point 
may  well  be  among  the  earliest  to  be  con- 
sidered in  planning  a  Southern  vacation. 

In  a  new  country  an  ornithologist  thinks 
first  of  all  of  the  birds  peculiar  to  it,  if  any 
such  there  are ;  and  I  was  no  sooner  off  tlie 
hotel  piazza  for  my  first  ante-breakfast  stroll 
at  Highlands,  than  I  was  on  the  watch  for 
Carolina  snowbirds  and  mountain  solitary 
vireos,  two  varieties  ("  subspecies "  is  the 
more  modern  word)  originally  described  a 
few  years  ago,  by  Mr.  Brewster,^  from  speci- 
mens taken  at  this  very  place.  I  had  gone 
perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  mile  over  the  road 
by  which  I  had  driven  into  the  town,  after 
dark,  on  the  evening  before,  when  I  was 
conscious  that  a  bird  had  flown  out  from 
under  the  overhanging  bank  just  behind  me. 
I  turned  hastily,  and  on  the  instant  put  my 
1  The  Auk,  vol.  iii.  pp.  108  and  111. 


116  NORTH  CAROLINA 

eye  upon  the  nest.  My  ear,  as  it  happened, 
had  marked  the  spot  precisely.  "  Here  it 
is,"  I  thought,  and  in  a  fraction  of  a  minute 
more   the   anxious    mother   showed    herself, 

—  a  snowbird.  The  nest  looked  somewhat 
larger  than  those  I  had  seen  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, but  that  may  have  been  a  fault  of 
memory.^  It  contained  young  birds  and  a 
single  egg.  I  was  in  great  luck,  I  said  to 
myself;  but  in  truth,  as  a  longer  experi- 
ence showed,  the  birds  were  so  numerous  all 
about  me  that  it  would  have  been  no  very 
difficult  undertaking  to  find  a  nest  or  two 
almost  any  day. 

Birds  which  had  been  isolated  (separated 
from  the  parent  stock)  long  enough  to  have 
taken  on  some  constant  physical  peculiarity 

—  without  which  they  could  not  be  entitled 
to  a  distinctive  name,  though  it  were  only  a 
third  one  —  might  be  presumed  to  have  ac- 
quired at  the  same  time  some  slight  but  real 
idiosyncrasy  of  voice  and  language.  But  if 
this  is  true  of  the  Carolina  junco,  I  failed  to 
satisfy  myself  of  the  fact.     On  the  first  day, 

1  My  first  impression  was  correct.  Mr.  Brewster,  as  I 
now  notice,  says  of  the  nest  that  it  is  "  larger  and  com- 
posed of  coarser  material  "  than  that  of  Junco  hyemalis. 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,  AND  PEOPLE     117 

indeed,  I  wrote  with  perfect  confidence : 
"  The  song  is  clearly  distinguishable  from 
that  of  the  northern  bird,  —  less  musical, 
more  woodeny  and  chippery ; "  more  like 
the  chipping  sparrow's,  I  meant  to  say.  If 
I  had  come  away  then,  with  one  bird's  trill 
to  go  upon,  that  would  have  been  my  ver- 
dict, to  be  printed,  when  the  time  came, 
without  misgiving.  But  further  observation 
brought  further  light,  or,  if  the  reader  will, 
further  obscurity.  Some  individuals  were 
better  singers  than  others,  —  so  much  was  to 
be  expected  ;  but  taking  them  together,  their 
music  was  that  of  ordinary  snowbirds  such 
as  I  had  always  listened  to.  For  aught  my 
ears  told  me,  I  might  have  been  in  Fran- 
conia.  This  is  not  to  assert  that  the  Alle- 
ghanian  junco  has  not  developed  a  voice  in 
some  measure  its  own  ;  I  believe  it  has ; 
probability  has  more  authority  than  per- 
sonal experience  with  me  in  matters  of  this 
kind;  but  the  change  is  as  yet  too  incon- 
siderable for  my  senses  to  appreciate  on  a 
short  acquaintance,  with  no  opportunity  for 
a  direct  comparison.  In  such  cases,  it  is 
perhaps  true  that  one  needs  to  trust  the  first 
lively  impression,  —  which  has,  undeniably. 


118  NOBTH  CABOLINA 

its  own  peculiar  value,  —  or  to  wait  the  re- 
sult of  absolute  familiarity.  My  stay  of 
three  weeks  gave  me  neither  one  thing  nor 
another  ;  it  was  long  enough  to  dissipate  my 
first  feeling  of  certainty,  but  not  long  enough 
to  yield  a  revised  and  settled  judgment. 

The  mountain  vireo  ( Vireo  solitariiis 
alticold)^  like  the  Carolina  snowbird,  may 
properly  be  called  a  native  of  Highlands ; 
and,  like  the  snowbird,  it  proved  to  be  com- 
mon. My  first  sight  of  it  was  in  the  hotel 
yard,  but  I  found  it  —  single  pairs  —  every- 
where. A  look  at  the  feathers  of  the  back 
through  an  opera-glass  showed  at  once  the 
principal  distinction  —  apart  from  a  supe- 
riority in  size,  not  perceptible  at  a  distance 
—  on  which  its  subspecific  identity  is  based ; 
but  though  to  its  original  describer  its  song 
sounded  very  much  finer  than  the  northern 
bird's,  I  could  not  bring  mj^self  to  the  same 
conclusion.  I  should  never  have  remarked 
in  it  anything  out  of  the  common.  Once, 
to  be  sure,  I  heard  notes  which  led  me  to 
say,  "  There  I  that  voice  is  more  like  a 
yellow-throat's,  —  fuller  and  rounder  than 
a  typical  solitary's  ; "  but  that  might  have 
happened  anywhere ;  and  at  all  other  times. 


BIBDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     119 

although  I  had  the  point  continually  in  mind, 
I  could  only  pronounce  the  song  to  be  ex- 
actly what  my  ear  was  accustomed  to, — 
sweet  and  everything  that  was  beautiful,  but 
a  solitary  vireo's  song,  and  nothing  else. 
And  this,  to  my  thinking,  is  praise  enough. 
There  is  no  bird-song  within  my  acquaintance 
that  excels  the  solitary's  in  a  certain  intimate 
expressiveness,  affectionateness,  home-felt 
happiness,  and  purity.  Not  that  it  has  all 
imaginable  excellencies,  —  the  unearthly, 
spiritual  quality  of  the  best  of  our  woodland 
thrush  music,  for  example ;  but  such  as  it  is, 
an  utterance  of  love  and  love's  felicity,  it 
leaves  nothing  to  ask  for.  What  a  contrast 
between  it  and  the  red-eye's  comparatively 
meaningless  and  feelingless  music !  And 
yet,  so  far  as  mere  form  is  concerned,  the  two 
songs  may  be  considered  as  built  upon  the 
same  model,  if  not  variations  of  the  same 
theme.  There  must  be  a  world-wide  differ- 
ence between  the  two  species,  one  would  say, 
in  the  matter  of  character  and  temperament. 
My  arrival  at  Highlands  seemed  to  have 
been  coincident  with  that  of  an  extraordi- 
nary throng  of  rose-breasted  grosbeaks.  For 
the   first    few   days,   especially,    the   whole 


120  NORTH  CAROLINA 

countryside  was  alive  with  thera,  till  I  felt 
as  if  I  had  never  seen  grosbeaks  before. 
Their  warbling  was  incessant ;  so  incessant, 
and  at  the  same  time  so  exceedingly  smooth 
and  sweet,  —  "  mellifluous  "  is  precisely  the 
word,  —  that  I  welcomed  it  almost  as  a  re- 
lief when  the  greater  j^art  of  the  chorus 
moved  on.  After  such  a  surfeit  of  honeyed 
fluency,  I  was  prepared  better  than  ever  to 
appreciate  certain  of  our  humbler  musicians, 
—  with  a  touch  of  roughness  in  the  voice  and 
something  of  brokenness  in  the  tune  ;  birds, 
for  instance,  like  the  black-throated  green 
warbler,  the  yellow-throated  vireo,  and  the 
scarlet  tanager.  But  if  I  was  glad  the 
crowd  had  gone,  I  was  glad  also  that  a 
goodly  sprinkling  of  the  birds  had  remained  ; 
so  that  there  was  never  a  day  when  I  did  not 
see  and  hear  them.  The  rose-breast  is  a 
lovely  singer.  In  my  criticism  of  him  I  am 
to  be  understood  as  meaning  no  more  than 
this  :  that  he,  like  every  other  artist,  has  the 
defects  of  his  good  qualities.  Smoothness 
is  a  virtue  in  music  as  in  writing  ;  but  it  is 
not  the  only  virtue,  nor  the  one  that  wears 
longest. 

After  the   grosbeaks,  whose  great  abun- 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     121 

dance  was  but  transitory,  two  of  the  most 
numerous  birds  were  the  Canadian  flycatch- 
ing  warbler  and  the  black-throated  blue,  — 
two  Northerners,  as  I  had  always  thought 
of  them.  Every  mountain  stream  was  over- 
hung, mile  after  mile,  by  a  tangle  of  rhodo- 
dendron and  laurel,  and  out  of  every  such 
tangle  came  the  hoarse  drawling  kree,  kree^ 
kree  of  the  black-throated  blue,  and  the 
sharp,  vivacious,  half-wrennish  song  of  the 
Canadian  flycatcher.  I  had  never  seen 
either  species  in  anything  near  such  num- 
bers ;  and  I  may  include  the  Blackburnian 
warbler  in  the  same  statement.  Concerning 
the  black-throated  blue,  it  is  to  be  said  that 
within  a  year  or  two  the  Alleghanian  bird 
has  been  discriminated  by  Dr.  Coues  as  a 
local  race,  with  a  designation  of  its  own,  — 
Bendroica  ccerulescens  cairnsi,  —  the  points 
of  distinction  being  its  smaller  size  and  the 
color  of  the  middle  back,  black  instead  of 
blue.  I  cannot  recollect  that  I  perceived 
anything  peculiar  about  its  notes,  nor,  so 
far  as  appears,  did  Mr.  Brewster  do  so ;  yet 
it  would  not  surprise  me  if  such  peculiarities 
were  found  to  exist.  The  best  of  ears  (and 
there  can  be  very  few  to  surpass  Mr.  Brew- 


122  NORTH  CAROLINA 

ster's,  I  am  sure)  cannot  take  heed  of  every- 
thing, especially  in  a  strange  piece  of  country, 
with  a  voice  out  of  every  bush  calling  for 
attention. 

A  few  birds,  too  familiar  to  have  attracted 
any  particular  notice  on  their  own  account, 
became  interesting  because  of  the  fact  that 
they  were  not  included  among  those  found 
here  by  Mr.  Brewster.  One  of  these  was 
the  Maryland  yellow-throat,  of  which  Mr. 
Brewster  saw  no  signs  above  a  level  of  2100 
feet.  (The  elevation  of  Highlands,  I  may 
remind  the  reader,  is  3800  feet.)  At  the 
time  of  my  visit,  the  song,  witchery,  witchery, 
witchery,  or  fidgety,  fidgety,  fidgety  (every 
listener  will  transliterate  the  dactyls  for  him- 
self), was  to  be  heard  daily  from  the  hotel 
piazza,  though  so  far  away  that,  with  Mr. 
Brewster's  negative  experience  in  mind,  I 
deferred  listing  the  name  till,  after  two  or 
three  days,  I  found  leisure  to  go  down  to  the 
swamp  out  of  which  the  notes,  whatever 
they  were,  evidently  proceeded.  Then  it 
transpired  that  at  least  five  males  were  in 
song,  in  four  different  places.  And  later 
(May  25)  I  happened  upon  one  in  still  an- 
other and  more  distant  spot.     Probably  the 


BIEDS,   FLO  WEES,   AND  PEOPLE     123 

species  had  come  in  since  Mr.  Brewster's 
day  (eleven  years  before),  with  some  change 
of  local  conditions,  —  the  cutting  down  of  a 
piece  of  forest,  perhaps,  and  the  formation 
of  a  bushy  swamp  in  its  place.  A  villager 
closely  observant  of  such  things,  and  well 
acquainted  with  the  bird,  assured  me  from 
his  own  recollection  of  the  matter  (and  he 
remembered  Mr.  Brewster's  visit  well)  that 
such  was  pretty  certainly  the  case. 

Another  bird  seen  almost  daily,  though  in 
limited  numbers,  was  the  red-winged  black- 
bird, which  Mr.  Brewster  noticed  only  in  a^ 
few  places  in  the  lower  valleys.  It  seemed 
well  within  the  range  of  probability  that  the 
same  changes  which  had  brought  in  one 
lover  of  sedgy  tussocks  and  button-bushes 
should  have  attracted  also  another.  I  made 
no  search  for  nests,  but  the  fact  that  the 
birds  were  seen  constantly  from  May  7  to 
May  27  may  be  taken  as  reasonably  con- 
clusive evidence  that  *  they  were  on  their 
breeding-grounds. 

Two  or  more  pairs  of  phcebes  had  settled 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  two  or  more  pairs 
of  parula  warblers.  The  former  were  not 
found  by  Mr.  Brewster  above  a  level  of  3000 


124  NORTH  CAROLINA 

feet,  and  the  latter  he  missed  at  Highlands, 
although,  as  he  says,  the  presence  of  trees 
hung  with  usnea  lichens  made  their  absence 
a  surprise. 

Hardly  less  rememberable  than  these  dif- 
ferences of  experience  was  one  striking  co- 
incidence. On  the  25th  of  May,  when  I 
had  been  at  Highlands  more  than  a  fort- 
night, I  was  sitting  on  the  veranda  waiting 
for  the  dinner-bell,  and  reading  the  praises  of 
"  free  silver  "  in  a  Georgia  newspaper,  when 
I  jumped  to  my  feet  at  the  whistle  of  a  Bal- 
,timore  oriole.  I  started  at  once  in  pursuit, 
and  presently  came  up  with  the  fellow,  a 
resplendent  old  male,  in  a  patch  of  shrub- 
bery bordering  the  hotel  grounds.  I  kept  as 
near  him  as  I  could  (in  Massachusetts  he 
would  scarcely  have  drawn  a  second  look), 
and  even  followed  him  across  the  street  into 
a  neighbor's  yard.  He  was  the  only  one  I 
had  seen  (he  was  piping  again  the  next 
morning,  the  last  of  my  stay),  and  on  refer- 
ring to  Mr.  Brewster's  paper  I  found  that  he 
too  met  with  one  bird  here,  ^  and  in  exactly 

1  "  At  Highlands  I  saw  a  single  male,  —  an  unusually 
brilliant  one,  —  which  I  was  told  was  the  only  bird  of  the 
kind  in  the  vicinity." 


BIBDS,  FLOWERS,  AND  PEOPLE     125 

the  same  spot.  The  keeper  of  the  hotel  re- 
membered the  circumstance  and  the  pleasure 
of  Mr.  Brewster  over  it.  In  my  case,  at 
any  rate,  the  lateness  and  unexpectedness  of 
the  bird's  appearance,  together  with  what  a 
certain  scholarly  friend  of  mine  would  have 
called  his  "  imiquity,"  made  him  the  bringer 
of  a  most  agreeable  noonday  excitement. 
Where  he  had  come  from,  and  whether  he 
had  brought  a  mate  with  him,  were  questions 
I  had  no  means  of  answering.  He  reminded 
me  of  my  one  Georgia  oriole,  on  the  field  of 
Chickamauga. 

The  road  to  Horse  Cove,  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken,  offered  easy  access  to  a 
lower  and  more  summery  level,  the  land  at 
this  point  dropping  almost  perpendicularly 
for  about  a  thousand  feet.  In  half  an  hour 
the  pedestrian  was  in  a  new  climate,  with 
something  like  a  new  fauna  about  him. 
Here  were  such  birds  as  the  Kentucky  war- 
bler, the  hooded  warbler,  the  cardinal  gros- 
beak, and  the  Acadian  flycatcher,  none  of 
them  to  be  discovered  on  the  plateau  above. 
Here,  also,  —  but  this  may  have  been  no- 
thing more  than  an  accident,  —  were  the 
only  bluebirds  (a  single  family)  that  I  saw 


126  NORTH  CABOLINA 

anywhere  until,  on  my  journey  out  of  the 
mountains,  I  descended  into  the  beautiful 
CuUowhee  Valley. 

At  Highlands  the  birds  were  a  mixed 
lot.  Southerners  and  Northerners  delight- 
fully jumbled :  a  few  Carolina  wrens  (one 
was  heard  whistling  from  the  summit  of 
Whiteside !)  ;  a  single  Bewick  wren,  sing- 
ing and  dodging  along  a  fence  in  the  heart 
of  the  village ;  tufted  titmice ;  Carolina 
chickadees;  Louisiana  water  thrushes  and 
turkey  buzzards  :  and  on  the  other  side  of 
the  account,  brown  creepers,  red -bellied 
nuthatches,  black  -  throated  blues,  Canada 
warblers,  Blackburnians,  snow-birds,  and 
olive-sided  flycatchers. 

An  unexpected  thing  was  the  common- 
ness of  blue  golden-winged  warblers,  chats, 
and  brown  thrashers  (the  chats  less  common 
than  the  other  two)  at  an  elevation  of  3800 
feet.  Still  more  numerous,  in  song  continu- 
ally, even  on  the  summit  of  Satulah,  were 
the  chestnut-sided  warblers,  although  Mr. 
Brewster,  in  his  tour  through  the  region, 
"  rarely  saw  more  than  one  or  two  in  any 
single  day :  "  a  third  instance,  as  seemed 
likely,  of  a  species  that  had  taken  advan- 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     127 

tage  of  new  local  conditions  —  an  increase 
of  shrubby  clearings,  in  the  present  case  — 
within  the  last  ten  years.  Here,  as  every- 
where, the  presence  of  some  birds  and  the 
absence  of  others  were  provocative  of  ques- 
tions. Why  should  the  Kentucky  warbler 
sing  from  rhododendron  thickets  halfway 
up  the  slope  at  the  head  of  Horse  Cove,  and 
never  be  tempted  into  other  thickets,  in  all 
respects  like  them,  just  over  the  brow  of 
the  cliff,  500  feet  higher?  Why  should  the 
summer  yellow-bird,  which  pushes  its  hardy 
spring  flight  beyond  the  Arctic  circle,  re- 
strict itself  here  in  the  Carolinas  to  the  low 
valley  lands  (I  saw  it  at  Walhalla  and  in 
the  Cullowhee  Valley),  and  never  once 
choose  a  nesting -site  in  appropriate  sur- 
roundings at  a  little  higher  level?  Why 
should  the  chat  and  the  blue  golden-wing 
find  life  agreeable  at  Highlands,  and  their 
regular  neighbors,  the  prairie  warbler  and 
the  white-eyed  vireo,  so  persistently  refuse 
to  follow  them  ?  And  why,  in  the  first  half 
of  May,  was  there  so  strange  a  dearth 
of  migrants  in  these  attractive  mountain 
woods  ?  —  a  few  blackpoll  warblers  (last 
seen  on  the  18th),  a  single  myrtle-bird  (on 


128  NORTH  CAROLINA 

the  7th) ,  and  a  crowd  of  rose-breasted  gros- 
beaks and  Blackburnian  warblers  (on  the 
8th  and  9th,  especially)  being  almost  the 
only  ones  to  fall  under  my  notice.  After 
all,  one  of  the  best  birds  I  saw,  not  for- 
getting the  Wilson's  phalarope,  —  my  ad- 
venture with  which  has  been  detailed  in  a 
previous  chapter,  —  was  a  song  sparrow 
singing  from  a  dense  swampy  thicket  on  the 
25th  of  May.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  no 
bird  of  his  kind  has  ever  before  been  re- 
ported in  summer  from  a  point  so  far  south. 
He  looked  natural,  but  not  in  the  least  com- 
monplace, as,  after  a  long  wait  on  my  part, 
—  for  absolute  certainty's  sake,  —  he  hopped 
out  into  sight.  I  was  proud  to  have  made 
one  discovery ! 

In  such  a  place,  so  limited  in  the  range 
of  its  physical  conditions,  —  a  village  sur- 
rounded by  forest,  —  the  birds,  however 
numerous  they  might  be,  counted  as  indi- 
viduals, were  sure  to  be  of  comparatively 
few  species.  Omitting  such  as  were  cer- 
tainly, or  almost  certainly,  migrants  or 
strays,  —  the  blackpoll,  the  myrtle-bird,  the 
barn  swallow,  the  king-bird,  the  solitary 
sandpiper,  and  the  phalarope,  —  and  such 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     129 

as  were  found  only  at  a  lower  level,  in  Horse 
Cove  and  elsewhere ;  omitting,  too,  all  birds 
of  prey,  —  few,  and  for  the  most  i)art  but 
imperfectly  identified ;  restricting  myself  to 
birds  fully  made  out  and  believed  to  be  sum- 
mering in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of 
Highlands ;  omitting  the  raven,  of  course, 
—  I  counted  but  fifty -nine  species. 

All  things  considered,  I  was  not  incon- 
solable at  finding  my  ornithological  activi- 
ties in  some  measure  abridged.  I  had  the 
more  time,  though  still  much  too  little,  for 
other  pursuits.  It  would  have  been  good  to 
spend  the  whole  of  it  upon  the  plants,  or  in 
admiring  the  beauties  of  the  country  itself. 
As  it  was,  I  plucked  a  blossom  here  and 
there^  stored  up  a  few  of  the  more  striking 
of  them  in  the  memory,  and  enjoyed  many 
an  hour  in  gazing  upon  the  new  wild  world, 
where,  no  matter  how  far  I  climbed,  there 
was  nothing  to  be  seen  on  all  sides  but  a 
sea  of  hills,  wave  rising  beyond  wave  to  the 
horizon's  rim. 

The  horizon  was  never  far  off.  I  was 
twice  on  Satulah  and  twice  on  Whiteside, 
from  which  latter  point,  by  all  accounts,  I 
should  have  had  one  of  the  most  extensive 


130  NORTH  CAROLINA 

and  beautiful  prospects  to  be  obtained  in 
North  Carolina ;  but  I  had  fallen  upon  one 
of  those  ''  spells  of  weather,"  common  in 
mountainous  places,  which  make  a  visitor 
feel  as  if  nothing  were  so  rare  as  a  trans- 
parent atmosphere.  For  ordinary  lowland 
purposes  the  days  were  no  doubt  favorable 
enough:  a  pleasing,  wholesome  alternation 
of  rain  and  shine,  wind  and  calm,  with  no 
lack  of  thunder  and  lightning,  and  once,  at 
least,  a  lively  hailstorm.  '*  Weather  like 
this  I  have  never  seen  elsewhere.  Such 
air !  "  So  I  wrote  in  my  enthusiasm,  think- 
ing of  physical  comfort,  —  a  man  who 
wished  to  walk  and  sit  still  by  turns,  and 
be  neither  sunstruck  nor  chilled  ;  but  withal, 
there  was  never  an  hour  of  clear  distance 
till  the  morning  I  came  away,  when  moun- 
tain ascents  were  no  long^er  to  be  thoutjht  of. 
The  world  was  all  in  a  cover  of  mist,  and 
the  outlying  hills,  one  beyond  another,  with 
the  haze  settling  into  the  valleys  between 
them,  were,  as  I  say,  like  the  billows  of  the 
sea.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  beauti- 
ful, perhaps ;  but  a  curtain  is  a  curtain,  and 
I  longed  to  see  it  rise.  A  change  of  wind,  a 
puff  from  the  northwest,  and  creation  would 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     131 

indeed  have  "  widened  in  man's  view." 
That  was  not  to  be,  and  all  those  lofty  North 
Carolina  peaks  —  of  which,  to  a  New  Eng- 
lander,  there  seem  to  be  so  many  ^  —  were 
seen  by  me  only  from  railway  trains  and 
from  the  hotel  veranda  at  Asheville,  on  my 
journey  homeward.  On  Satulah  and  White- 
side I  was  forced  to  please  myself  with  the 
glory  of  the  foreground.  What  lay  beyond 
the  mist  was  matter  for  dreams. 

But  even  as  things  were,  I  was  not  so 
badly  used.  There  was  more  beauty  in  sight 
than  I  could  begin  to  see,  and,  notwithstand- 
ing the  comparative  narrowness  of  the  out- 
look, —  partly  because  of  it,  —  one  of  my 
most  enjoyable  forenoons  was  spent  on  the 
broad,  open,  slightly  rounded  summit  of 
Satulah.  Here  and  there  ("  more  here  than 
there,"  my  pencil  says)  a  solitary  cabin  was 
visible,  or  a  bit  of  road,  a  ribbon  of  brown 
amidst  the  green  of  the  forest,  but  no  village, 
nor  so  much  as  a  hamlet.  The  only  other 
signs  of  human  existence  were  a  light  smoke, 

^  According  to  a  publication  of  the  State  Board  of 
Agriculture,  North  Carolina  contains  forty-three  peaks 
more  than  6000  feet  high,  eighty-two  others  more  than 
5000  feet  high,  and  an  "  innumerable  "  multitude  the  alti- 
tude of  which  is  between  4000  and  5000  feet. 


132  NORTH  CAROLINA 

barely  distinguishable,  rising  from  Horse 
Cove  as  I  guessed,  and,  for  a  few  minutes,  a 
man  whom  my  eye  fell  upon  most  unexpect- 
edly, a  motionless  speck,  though  he  was 
walking,  far  down  the  Walhalla  road.  I 
turned  my  glass  that  way,  and  behold,  he 
had  the  usual  bag  of  grain  on  his  back. 

The  date  was  May  12.  I  had  been  in 
Highlands  less  than  a  week,  and  my  thoughts 
still  ran  upon  ravens,  the  birds  which,  more 
even  than  the  southern  snowbird  and  the 
mountain  vireo,  I  had  come  hither  to  seek. 
They  were  said  often  to  fly  over,  and  this 
surely  should  be  a  place  to  see  them.  They 
could  not  escape  me,  if  they  passed  within  a 
mile.  But  though  I  kept  an  eye  out,  as  we 
say,  and  an  ear  open,  it  was  a  vigil  thrown 
away.  Buzzards,  swifts,  and  a  bunch  of 
twittering  goldfinches  were  all  the  birds  that 
"  flew  over."  A  chestnut-sided  warbler  sang 
so  persistently  from  the  mountain  side  just 
below  that  his  sharp  voice  became  almost  a 
trouble.  From  the  same  quarter  rose  the 
songs  of  an  oven-bird,  a  rose-breasted  gros- 
beak, and  a  scarlet  tanager.  On  the  sum- 
mit itself  were  snowbirds  and  chewinks ;  and 
once,  to  my  delight,  a  field  sparrow  gave  out 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     133 

a  measure  or  two.  After  all,  go  where  you 
will,  you  will  hear  few  voices  that  wear  better 
than  his,  —  clear,  smooth,  most  agreeably 
modulated,  and  temperately  sweet. 

The  only  trees  I  remember  at  the  very 
top  of  the  mountain  were  a  few  dwarfed  and 
distorted  pines  and  white  oaks,  —  enough  to 
remind  a  Yankee  that  he  was  not  in  New 
Hampshire.  On  the  other  hand,  here  grew 
our  Massachusetts  huckleberry  (^Gaylus- 
sacia  resinosa)^  which  I  had  seen  nowhere 
below,  where  a  great  abundance  of  the  buck- 
berry  —  so  I  think  I  heard  it  called  ( G. 
ursiiia)^  —  taller  bushes,  more  comfortable 
to  pick  from,  with  larger  blossoms  —  seemed 
to  have  taken  its  place.  I  should  have  been 
glad  to  try  the  fruit,  which  was  described  as 
of  excellent  quality.  On  that  point,  with 
no  thought  of  boasting,  I  could  have  spoken 
as  an  expert.  With  the  huckleberry  was 
chokeberry,  another  New  England  acquaint- 
ance, fair  to  look  upon,  but  a  hypocrite,  — 
"  by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them  ;  "  and 
underneath,  among  the  stones,  were  common 
yellow  five-fingers,  bird-foot  violets,  and 
leaves  of  trailing  arbutus,  three-toothed 
potentilla  (a  true  mountain-lover),  checker- 


134  NORTH  CAROLINA 

berry,  and  galax.  With  them,  but  deserv- 
ing a  sentence  by  themselves,  were  the 
exquisite  vernal  iris  and  the  scarlet  painted 
cup,  otherwise  known  as  the  Indian's  paint- 
brush and  prairie  fire,  splendid  for  color,  and 
in  these  parts,  to  my  astonishment,  a  fre- 
quenter of  the  forest.  I  should  have  looked 
for  it  only  in  grassy  meadows.  Here  and 
there  grew  close  patches  of  the  pretty,  alpine- 
looking  sand  myrtle  (^Leiophyllum  huxifo- 
liurti)^  thickly  covered  with  small  white 
flowers,  —  a  plant  which  I  had  seen  for  the 
first  time  the  day  before  on  the  summit  of 
Whiteside.  Mountain  heather  I  called  it, 
finding  no  English  name  in  Chapman's 
Flora.  Stunted  laurel  bushes  in  small  bud 
were  scattered  over  the  summit.  A  little 
later  they  would  make  the  place  a  flower  gar- 
den. A  single  rose-acacia  tree  had  already 
done  its  best  in  that  direction,  with  a  full 
crop  of  gorgeous  rose-purple  clusters.  The 
winds  had  twisted  it  and  kept  it  down,  but 
could  not  hinder  its  fruitfulness. 

These  things,  and  others  like  them,  I 
noticed  between  times.  For  the  most  part, 
my  eyes  were  upon  the  grand  panorama,  a 
wilderness  of  hazy,  forest-covered  mountains, 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,  AND  PEOPLE     135 

as  far  as  the  eye  could  go ;  nameless  to  me, 
all  of  them,  with  the  exception  of  the  two 
most  conspicuous,  —  Whiteside  on  the  one 
hand,  and  Rabun  Bald  on  the  other.  For 
my  comfort  a  delicious  light  breeze  was  stir- 
ring, and  the  sky,  as  it  should  be  when  one 
climbs  for  distant  prospects,  was  sprinkled 
with  small  cumulus  clouds,  which  in  turn 
dappled  the  hills  with  moving  shadows. 
One  thing  brought  home  to  me  a  truth 
which  in  our  dullness  we  ordinarily  forget : 
that  the  earth  itself  is  but  a  shadow,  a  some- 
thing that  appeareth,  change th,  and  passeth 
away.  The  rocks  at  my  feet  were  full  of 
pot-holes,  such  as  I  had  seen  a  day  or  two 
before,  the  water  still  swirling  in  them,  at 
CuUasajah  Falls.  As  universal  time  is  reck- 
oned, —  if  it  is  reckoned,  —  old  Satulah  and 
all  that  forest-covered  world  which  I  saw,  or 
thought  I  saw,  from  it,  were  but  of  yesterday, 
a  ''  divine  improvisation,"  and  would  be  gone 
to-morrow. 

More  beautiful  than  the  round  prospect 
from  Satulah,  though  perhaps  less  stimulat- 
ing to  the  imagination,  was  the  view  from 
the  edge  of  the  mountain  wall  at  the  head  of 
Horse  Cove.     Here,  under  a  chestnut  tree, 


136  NORTH  CAROLINA 

I  spent  the  greater  part  of  a  half  day,  the 
valley  with  its  road  and  its  four  or  five 
houses  straight  at  my  feet.  A  dark  preci- 
pice of  bare  rock  bounded  it  on  the  right,  a 
green  mountain  on  the  left,  and  in  the  dis- 
tance southward  were  ridges  and  peaks  with- 
out number.  A  few  of  the  nearer  hills  I 
knew  the  names  of  by  this  time :  Fodder- 
stack,  Bearpen,  Hogback,  Chimneytop,  Ter- 
rapin, Shortoff,  Scaly,  and  Whiteside.  Sa- 
tulah  was  the  only  Jine  name  in  the  lot ;  and 
that,  for  a  guess,  is  aboriginal.  The  North 
American  Indians  had  a  genius  for  names, 
as  the  Greeks  had  for  sculpture  and  poetry, 
and  will  be  remembered  for  it. 

I  had  come  to  the  brow  of  the  cliffs,  at  a 
place  called  Lover's  Leap,  in  search  of  a 
particular  kind  of  rhododendron.  It  bore 
a  small  flower,  my  informant  had  said,  and 
grew  hereabout  only  in  this  one  spot.  It 
proved  to  be  H.  ininctatum^  new  to  me,  and 
now  (May  23)  in  early  blossom.  Four  days 
afterward,  in  the  Cullowhee  and  Tuckasee- 
gee  valleys,  I  saw  riverbanks  and  roadsides 
lined  with  it ;  very  pretty,  of  course,  being 
a  rhododendron,  but  not  to  be  compared  in 
that  respect  with  the  purple  rhododendron 


BIBDS,   FLOWERS,   AND  PEOPLE     137 

or  mountain  rose-bay  (7?.  Catawhiense). 
That,  also,  was  to  be  found  here,  but  very 
sparingly,  as  far  as  I  could  discover.  I 
felicitated  myself  on  having  seen  it  in  its 
glory  on  the  mountains  of  southeastern  Ten- 
nessee. The  common  large  rhododendron 
(i?.  maximum)  stood  in  thickets  along  all 
the  brooks.  I  must  have  walked  and  driven 
past  a  hundred  miles  of  it,  on  the  present 
trip,  it  seemed  to  me  ;  but  I  have  never  been 
at  the  South  late  enough  to  see  it  in  flower. 
What  I  shall  remember  longest  about  the 
flora  of  Highlands  —  and  there  is  no  part  of 
eastern  North  America  that  is  botanically 
richer,  I  suppose  —  is  the  azaleas.  When  I 
drove  up  from  Walhalla,  on  the  6th  of  May, 
the  woods  were  bright,  mile  after  mile,  with 
the  common  pink  species  (^A.  nudijlord)  ; 
and  at  Highlands,  in  some  of  the  dooryards, 
I  found  in  full  bloom  a  much  lovelier  kind, 
—  also  pink,  and  also  leafless,  —  A.  Vaseyi, 
as  it  turned  out :  a  rare  and  lately  discov- 
ered plant,  of  which  the  village  people  are 
justly  proud.  I  could  not  visit  its  wild 
habitat  without  a  guide,  they  told  me. 
W^ithin  a  week  or  so  after  my  arrival  the 
real  glory  of  the  spring  was  upon  us :  the 


138  NORTH  CAROLINA 

woods  were  lighted  up  everywhere  with  the 
flame-colored  azalea ;  and  before  it  was  gone, 
—  while  it  was  still  at  its  height,  indeed,  — 
the  familiar  sweet-scented  white  azalea  (^A. 
viscosa'),  the  "  swamp  pink  "  of  my  boyhood, 
came  forward  to  keep  it  company  and  lend 
it  contrast.  By  that  time  I  had  seen  all  the 
rhododendrons  and  azaleas  mentioned  in 
Chapman's  Flora,  including  A.  arborescens, 
a  tardy  bloomer,  which  a  botanical  collector, 
with  whom  I  was  favored  to  sj^end  a  day  on 
the  road,  pointed  out  to  me  in  the  bud. 

The  splendor  of  A.  calendulacea^  as  dis- 
played here,  is  never  to  be  forgotten ;  nor  is 
it  to  be  in  the  least  imagined  by  those  who 
have  seen  a  few  stunted  specimens  of  the 
plant  in  northern  gardens.  The  color  ranges 
from  light  straw-color  to  the  brightest  and 
deepest  orange,  and  the  bushes,  thousands 
on  thousands,  no  two  of  them  alike,  stand, 
not  in  rows  or  clusters,  but  broadly  spaced, 
each  by  itself,  throughout  the  hillside  woods. 

They  were  never  out  of  sight,  and  I  never 
could  have  enough  of  them.  Wherever  I 
went,  I  was  always  stoj^ping  short  before  one 
bush  and  another ;  admiring  this  one  for  the 
brilliancy  or  delicacy  of  its  floral  tints,  and 


BIBDS,   FLOWERS,   AND   PEOPLE      139 

that  one  for  its  bold  and  pleasing  habit.  For 
as  the  j)lants  do  not  grow  in  close  ranks,  so 
they  do  not  put  forth  their  flowers  in  a  mass- 
They  know  a  trick  better  than  that.  Thou- 
sands of  shrubs,  but  every  one  in  its  own 
place,  to  be  separately  looked  at;  and  on 
every  shrub  a  few  sprays  of  bloom,  each  well 
apart  from  all  the  others ;  one  twijr  bearino- 
nothing  but  leaves,  another  full  of  blossoms  ; 
a  short  branch  here,  a  longer  one  there  ;  and 
again,  a  smooth  straight  stem  shooting  far 
aloft,  holding  at  the  tip  a  bunch  of  leaves 
and  flowers ;  everything  free,  unstudied,  and 
most  irregularly  graceful,  as  if  the  bushes 
had  each  an  individuality  as  well  as  a  tint 
of  its  own.  Often  it  was  not  a  bush  that  I 
stood  still  to  take  my  fill  of,  but  a  single 
branch,  —  as  beautiful,  I  thought,  as  if  it 
had  been  the  only  one  in  the  world. 

One  walk  on  Satulah  —  not  to  the  summit, 
but  by  a  roundabout  course  through  the 
woods  to  a  bold  cliff  on  the  southern  side 
(all  the  mountains,  as  a  rule,  are  rounded  on 
the  north,  and  break  off  sharply  on  the 
south)  —  was  literally  a  walk  through  an 
azalea  show  ;  first  the  flame-colored,  bushes 
beyond  count  and   variety  beyond  descrip- 


140  NOETH  CABOLINA 

tion ;  and  then,  a  little  higher,  a  plentiful 
display  of  the  white  viscosa,  more  familiar 
and  less  showy,  but  hardly  less  attractive. 

Better  even  than  this  wild  Satulah  garden 
was  a  smaller  one  nearer  home :  a  triangular 
hillside,  broad  at  the  base  and  pointed  at  the 
top,  as  if  it  were  one  face  of  a  pyramid  ; 
covered  loosely  with  grand  old  trees,  —  oaks, 
chestnuts,  and  maples ;  the  ground  densely 
matted  with  freshly  grown  ferns,  largely  the 
cinnamon  osmunda,  clusters  of  lively  green 
and  warm  brown  intermixed ;  and  every- 
where, under  the  trees  and  above  the  ferns, 
mountain  laurel  and  flame-colored  azalea,  — 
the  laurel  blooms  pale  pink,  almost  white, 
and  the  azalea  clusters  yellow  of  every  con- 
ceivable degree  of  depth  and  brightness.  A 
zigzag  fence  bounded  the  wood  below,  and 
the  land  rose  at  a  steep  angle,  so  that  the 
whole  was  held  aloft,  as  it  were,  for  the  be- 
holder's convenience.  It  was  a  wonder  of 
beauty,  with  nothing  in  the  least  to  mar  its 
perfection,  —  the  fairest  piece  of  earth  my 
eye  ever  rested  upon.  The  human  owner  of 
it,  Mr.  Selleck  (why  should  I  not  please  my- 
self by  naming  him,  a  land-owner  who  knew 
the  worth  of  his  possession  I),  had  asked  me 


BIRDS,   FLOWERS,   AND   PEOPLE     141 

to  go  and  see  it ;  and  for  his  sake  and  its 
own,  as  well  as  for  my  own  sake  and  the 
reader's,  I  wish  I  could  show  it  as  it  was. 
It  rises  before  me  at  this  moment,  like  the 
rhododendron  cliffs  on  Walden's  Ridg-e,  and 
wiU  do  so,  I  hope,  to  my  dying  day. 


VIEGINIA 


A  NOOK  IN  THE    ALLEGHANIES 


I  LEFT  Boston  at  nine  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  April  23,  and  reached  Pulaski, 
in  southwestern  Virginia,  at  ten  o'clock  the 
next  forenoon,  exactly  on  schedule  time,  — 
or  within  five  minutes  of  it,  to  give  the  rail- 
road no  more  than  its  due.  It  was  a  journey 
to  meet  the  spring,  —  which  for  a  Massa- 
chusetts man  is  always  a  month  tardy,  — 
and  as  such  it  was  speedily  rewarded.  Even 
in  Connecticut  there  were  vernal  signs,  a 
dash  of  greenness  here  and  there  in  the 
meadows,  and  generous  sproutings  of  skunk 
cabbage  about  the  edges  of  the  swamps ;  and 
once  out  of  Jersey  City  we  were  almost  in  a 
green  world.  At  Bound  Brook,  I  think  it 
was,  the  train  stopped  where  a  Norway 
maple  opposite  my  window  stood  all  in  a 
yellow  mist  of  blossoms,  and  chimney  swifts 
were  shooting  hither  and  thither  athwart  the 


146  VIRGINIA 

bright  afternoon  sky.  By  the  time  Philadel- 
phia was  reached,  or  by  the  time  we  were 
done  with  running  in  and  out  of  its  several 
stations,  the  night  had  commenced  falling, 
and  I  saw  nothing  more  of  the  world,  with 
all  that  famous  valley  of  the  Shenandoah, 
till  I  left  my  berth  at  Roanoke.  There  the 
orchards  —  apple-trees  and  peach-trees  to- 
gether—  were  in  full  bloom,  and  on  the 
slopes  of  the  hills,  as  we  pushed  in  among 
them,  rounding  curve  after  curve,  shone  gor- 
geous red  patches  of  the  Judas-tree,  with 
sprinklings  of  columbines,  violets,  marsh- 
marigolds,  and  dandelions,  and  sj^lashes  of 
deep  orange-yellow,  —  clusters  of  some  flower 
then  unknown  to  me,  but  pretty  certainly 
the  Indian  puccoon ;  not  the  daintiest  of 
blossoms,  perhaps,  but  among  the  most  effec- 
tive under  such  fugitive,  arm's-length  condi- 
tions. A  plaguing  kind  of  pleasure  it  is  to 
ride  past  such  things  at  a  speed  which  makes 
a  good  look  at  them  impossible,  as  once,  for 
the  better  part  of  a  long  forenoon,  in  the 
flatwoods  of  Florida  and  southern  Georgia,  I 
rode  through  swampy  places  bright  with 
splendid  pitcher-plants,  of  a  species  I  had 
never  seen  and  knew  nothing  about ;  strain- 


A  NOOK  IN    THE  ALLEGII^iNIES      147 

ing  my  eyes  to  make  out  the  yellow  blossoms, 
dei^loring  the  speed  of  the  train,  — which, 
nevertheless,  brouglit  me  into  Macon  several 
hours  after  I  should  have  been  in  Atlanta, 
—  wishing  for  my  Chapman's  Flora  (packed 
away  in  my  trunk,  of  course),  and  bewail- 
ing the  certainty  that  I  was  losing  the  only 
opportunity  I  should  ever  have  to  see  so 
interesting  a  novelty.  And  still,  —  I  can 
say  it  now,  —  half  a  look  is  better  than  no 
vision. 

For  fifty  miles  beyond  Roanoke  we  trav- 
eled southward  ;  but  an  ascent  of  a  thousand 
feet  offset,  and  more  than  offset,  the  change 
of  latitude,  so  that  at  Pulaski  we  found  the 
apple-trees  not  yet  in  flower,  but  showing 
the  pink  of  the  buds.  The  venerable,  pleas- 
ingly unsymmetrical  sugar  maples  in  the 
yard  of  the  inn  (the  reputed,  and  real,  com- 
forts of  which  had  drawn  me  to  this  particu- 
lar spot)  were  hung  full  of  pale  yellow  tassels, 
and  vocal  with  honey-bees.  Spring  was  here, 
and  I  felt  myself  welcome. 

Till  luncheon  should  be  ready,  I  strayed 
into  the  border  of  the  wood  behind  the 
town,  and,  wandering  quite  at  a  venture, 
came  by  good  luck  upon  a  path  which  fol- 


148  VIRGINIA 

lowed  the  tortuous,  deeply  worn  bed  of  a 
brook  through  a  narrow  pass  between  steep, 
sparsely  wooded,  rocky  hills.  Along  the 
bank  grew  plenty  of  the  common  rhododen- 
dron, now  in  early  bud,  and  on  either  side 
of  the  path  were  trailing  arbutus  and  other 
early  flowers.  Yes,  I  had  found  the  spring, 
not  summer.  And  the  birds  bore  the  same 
testimony :  thrashers,  chippers,  field  sparrows, 
black-and-white  creepers,  and  a  Carolina 
chickadee.  Summer  birds,  like  summer 
flowers,  were  yet  to  come.  A  brief  song, 
repeated  at  intervals  from  the  ragged,  half- 
cleared  hillside  near  a  house,  as  I  returned 
to  the  village,  puzzled  me  agreeably.  It 
should  be  the  voice  of  a  Bewick's  wren,  I 
thought,  but  the  notes  seemed  not  to  tally 
exactly  with  my  recollections  of  a  year  ago, 
on  Missionary  Ridge.  However,  I  made 
only  a  half-hearted  attempt  to  decide  the 
point.  There  would  be  time  enough  for 
such  investigations  by  and  by.  Meanwhile, 
it  would  be  a  poor  beginning  to  take  a  first 
walk  in  a  new  country  without  bringing 
back  at  least  one  uncertainty  for  expectation 
to  feed  upon.  It  is  always  part  of  to-day's 
wisdom  to  leave  something  for  to-morrow's 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     149 

search.  So  I  seem  to  remember  reasoning 
with  myself ;  but  perhaps  a  thought  of  tlie 
noonday  luncheon  had  something  to  do  with 
my  temporizing  mood. 

In  any  case  no  harm  came  of  it.  The 
singer  was  at  home  for  the  season,  and  the 
very  next  morning  I  went  up  the  hill  and 
made  sure  of  him:  a  Bewick's  wren,  as  I 
had  guessed.  I  heard  him  there  on  sundry 
occasions  afterward.  Sometimes  he  sang 
one  tune,  sometimes  another.  The  song 
heard  on  the  first  day,  and  most  frequently, 
perhaps,  at  other  times,  consisted  of  a  pro- 
longed indrawn  whistle,  followed  by  a  trill 
or  jumble  of  notes  (not  many  birds  trill, 
I  suppose,  in  the  technical  sense  of  that 
word),  as  if  the  fellow  had  picked  up  his 
music  from  two  masters,  —  a  Bachman  finch 
and  a  song  sparrow.  It  soon  transpired, 
greatly  to  my  satisfaction,  that  this  was  one 
of  the  characteristic  songsters  of  the  town. 
One  bird  sang  daily  not  far  from  my  win- 
dow (the  first  time  I  heard  him  I  ran  out  in 
haste,  looking  for  some  new  sparrow,  and 
only  came  to  my  senses  when  halfway  across 
the  lawn),  and  I  never  walked  far  in  the 
town  (the  city,  I  ought  in  civility  to  say) 


150  VIRGINIA 

without  passing  at  least  two  or  three.  Some- 
times as  many  as  that  would  be  within  hear- 
ing at  once.  They  preferred  the  town  to 
the  woods  and  fields,  it  was  evident,  and  for 
a  singing-perch  chose  indifferently  a  fence 
picket,  the  roof  of  a  hen-coop,  a  chimney- 
top,  or  the  ridgepole  of  one  of  the  churches, 
—  which  latter,  by  the  bye,  were  most  un- 
christianly  numerous.  The  people  are  to 
be  congratulated  upon  having  so  jolly  and 
pretty  a  singer  playing  hide-and-seek  —  the 
wren's  game  always  —  in  their  house-yards 
and  caroling  under  their  windows.  As  a 
musician  he  far  outshines  the  more  widely 
known  house  wren,  though  that  bird,  too,  is 
excellent  company,  with  his  pert  ways,  at 
once  furtive  and  familiar,  and  his  merry 
gurgle  of  a  tune.  If  he  would  only  come 
back  to  our  sparrow-cursed  Massachusetts 
gardens  and  orchards,  as  I  still  hope  he  will 
some  time  do,  I  for  one  would  never  twit 
him  upon  his  inferiority  to  his  Bewickian 
cousin  or  to  anybody  else. 

The  city  itself  would  have  repaid  study, 
if  only  for  its  unlikeness  to  cities  in  general. 
It  had  not  "descended  out  of  heaven,"  so 
much  was  plain,  though  this  is  not  what  I 


A  NOOK  IN  THE  ALLEGHANIES     151 

mean  by  its  unlikeness  to  other  places ; 
neither  did  it  seem  to  have  grown  up  after 
the  old-fashioned  method,  a  "  slow  result  of 
time,"  —  first  a  hamlet,  then  a  village,  then 
a  town,  and  last  of  all  a  city.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  bore  all  the  marks  of  something 
built  to  order ;  in  the  strictest  sense,  a  city 
made  with  hands.  And  so,  in  fact,  it  is  ; 
one  of  the  more  fortunate  survivals  of  what 
the  people  of  southwestern  Virginia  are  ac- 
customed to  speak  of  significantly  as  "  the 
boom," — a  grand  attempt,  now  a  thing  of 
the  past,  but  still  bitterly  remembered,  to 
make  everybody  rich  by  a  concerted  and 
enthusiastic  multiplication  of  nothing  by  no- 
thing. 

Such  a  community,  I  repeat,  would  have 
been  an  interesting  and  very  "  proper 
study;"  but  I  had  not  come  southward  in 
a  studious  mood.  I  meant  to  be  idle,  hav- 
ing a  gift  in  that  direction  which  I  am  sel- 
dom able  to  cultivate  as  it  deserves.  It  is 
one  of  the  best  of  gifts.  I  coidd  never  fall 
in  with  what  the  poet  Gray  says  of  it  in  one 
of  his  letters.  "  Take  my  word  and  experi- 
ence upon  it,"  he  writes,  "  doing  nothing  is 
a  most  amusing  business,  and  yet  neither 


152  VIRGINIA 

something  nor  nothing  gives  me  any  plea- 
sure." He  begins  bravely,  although  the 
trivial  word  "amusing"  wakens  a  distrust 
of  his  sincerity ;  but  what  a  pitiful  conclu- 
sion !  How  quickly  the  boom  collapses  I  It 
is  to  be  said  for  him,  however,  that  he  was 
only  twenty  years  old  at  the  time,  and  a 
relish  for  sentiment  and  reverie  —  that  is  to 
say,  for  the  pleasures  of  idleness  —  is  apt 
to  be  little  developed  at  that  immature  age. 
I  had  passed  that  point  by  some  years ;  I 
was  sure  I  could  enjoy  a  week  of  dream- 
ing ;  and,  unlike  Bewick's  wren,  I  took  to 
the  woods. 

To  that  end  I  returned  again  and  again 
to  the  brookside  path,  on  which  I  had  so 
fortunately  stumbled.  A  man  on  my  errand 
could  have  asked  nothing  better,  unless, 
perchance,  there  had  been  a  mile  or  two 
more  of  it.  Following  it  past  two  or  three 
tumble-down  cabins,  the  stroller  was  at  once 
out  of  the  world ;  a  single  bend  in  the 
course  of  the  brook,  and  the  hills  closed  in 
behind  him,  and  the  town  might  have  been 
a  thousand  miles  away.  Life  itself  is  such 
a  path  as  this,  I  reflected.  The  forest  shuts 
behind  us,  and  is  open  only  at  our  feet,  with 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     153 

here  and  there  a  flower  or  a  butterfly  or  a 
strain  of  music  to  take  u})  our  tliou<^hts,  as 
we  travel  on  toward  tlie  clearing  at  the  end. 
For  the  first  day  or  two  the  deciduous 
woods  still  showed  no  signs  of  leafage,  but 
tall,  tree-like  shadbushes  were  in  flower, — 
fair  brides,  veiled  as  no  princess  ever  was, 

—  and  a  solitary  red  maple  stood  blushing 
at  its  own  premature  fruitfulness.  Here  a 
man  walked  between  acres  of  hepatica  and 
trailing  arbutus,  —  the  brook  dividing  them, 

—  while  the  path  was  strewn  with  violets, 
anemones,  buttercups,  bloodroot,  and  hous- 
tonia.  In  one  place  was  a  patch  of  some 
new  yellow  flowers,  like  five-fingers,  but 
more  upright,  and  growing  on  bracted 
scapes  ;  barren  strawberries  (  Waldsteinia) 
Dr.  Gray  told  me  they  were  called,  and  one 
more  Latin  name  had  blossomed  into  a  pic- 
ture. A  manual  of  botany,  annotated  with 
place-names  and  dates,  gets  after  a  time  to 
be  truly  excellent  reading,  a  refreshment  to 
the  soul,  in  winter  especially,  as  name  after 
name  calls  up  the  living  plant  and  all  the 
wild  beauty  that  goes  with  it.  And  with 
the  thought  of  the  barren  strawberry  I  can 
see,  what  I  had  all  but  forgotten,  though  it 


154  VIRGINIA 

was  one  of  the  first  things  I  noticed,  the 
sloping  ground  covered  with  large,  round, 
shiny,  purplish-green  (evergreen)  leaves,  aU 
exquisitely  crinkled  and  toothed.  With  no- 
thing but  the  leaves  to  depend  upon,  I  could 
only  conjecture  the  plant  to  be  galax,  a 
name  which  caught  my  eye  by  the  sheerest 
accident,  as  I  turned  the  pages  of  the  Man- 
ual looking  for  something  else ;  but  the  con- 
jecture turned  out  to  be  a  sound  one,  as  the 
sagacious  reader  will  have  already  inferred 
from  the  fact  of  its  mention. 

In  such  a  place  there  was  no  taking  many 
steps  without  a  halt.  My  gait  was  rather  a 
progressive  standing  still  than  an  actual 
progress  ;  so  that  it  mattered  little  whither 
or  how  far  the  path  might  carry  me.  I 
was  not  going  somewhere,  —  I  was  already 
there ;  or  rather,  I  was  both  at  once. 
Every  stroller  will  know  what  I  mean.  Fru- 
ition and  expectation  were  on  my  tongue 
together;  to  risk  an  unscriptural  paradox, 
what  I  saw  I  yet  hoped  for.  The  brook, 
tumbling  noisily  downward,  —  in  some 
places  over  almost  regular  flights  of  stone 
steps,  —  now  in  broad  sunshine,  now  in  the 
shade  of  pines  and  hemlocks  and  rhododen- 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGUANIES      155 

drons,  was  of  itself  a  cheerful  companion- 
ship, its  inarticulate  speech  chiming  in 
well  with  thoughts  that  were  not  so  much 
thoughts  as  dumb  sensations. 

Here  and  there  my  footsteps  disturbed  a 
tiny  blue  butterfly,  a  bumblebee,  or  an  emer- 
ald beetle,  —  lovers  of  the  sun  all  of  them, 
and  therefore  haunters  of  the  path.  Once 
a  grouse  sprang  up  just  before  me,  and  at 
another  time  I  stopped  to  gain  sight  of  a 
winter  wren,  whose  querulous  little  song- 
sparrow  -  like  note  betrayed  his  presence 
under  the  overhanging  sod  of  the  bank, 
where  he  dodged  in  and  out,  pausing  be- 
tween whiles  upon  a  projecting  root,  to 
emphasize  his  displeasure  by  nervous  gestic- 
ulatory  bobbings.  He  meant  I  should  know 
what  he  thought  of  me  ;  and  I  would  gladly 
have  returned  the  compliment,  but  saw  no 
way  of  doing  so.  It  is  a  fault  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  world  that  we  receive  so 
much  pleasure  from  innocent  wild  creatures, 
and  can  never  thank  them  in  return.  Black- 
and-white  creepers  were  singing  at  short  in- 
tervals, and  several  pairs  of  hooded  warblers 
seemed  already  to  have  made  themselves 
at  home  among  the  rhododendron  bushes. 


156 


VIRGINIA 


Just  a  year  before  I  had  taken  my  fill  of 
their  music  on  Walden's  Ridge,  in  Tennes- 
see.    Then  it  became  almost  an  old  story; 
now,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  I  mistook  the 
voice  for  a  stranger's.     It  was  much  better 
than  I  remembered  it ;  fuller,  sweeter,  less 
wiry.     Perhaps  the  birds  sang  better  here 
in  Virginia,  I  tried  to  think ;  but  that  com- 
fortable explanation  had  nothing  else  in  its 
favor.     It  was  more  probable,  I  was  bound 
to  conclude,  that  the  superior  quality  of  the 
Kentucky  warbler's  music,  which  was  all  the 
time  in  my  ears  on  Walden's   Ridge,  had 
put  me  unjustly  out  of  conceit  with  the  per- 
formance  of  its  less  taking  neighbor.     At 
all  events,  I  now  voted  the  latter  a  singer 
of  decided  merit,  and  was  ready  to  unsay 
pretty  much   all  that   I  had  formerly  said 
against  it.     I  went  so  far,  indeed,  as  to  grow 
sarcastic  at  my  own  expense,  for  in  my  field 
memoranda  I  find  this  entry  :  "  The  hooded 
warbler's   song  is  very  little   like  the  red- 
start's, in  spite  of  what  Torrey  has  written." 
Verily  the  pencil  is  mightier  than  the  pen, 
and  a  note  in  the  field  is  worth  two  in  the 
study.     Yet  that,  after  all,  is  an  unfair  way 
of  putting  the  'matter,  since  the  Tennessee 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES      LOT 

note  also  was  made  in  the  field.  Let  one 
note  correct  the  other  ;  or,  better  still,  let 
each  stand  for  whatever  of  truth  it  expresses. 
Happily,  there  is  no  final  judgment  on  such 
themes.  One  thing  I  remarked  with  equal 
surprise  and  pleasure  :  the  song  reminded 
me  again  and  again  of  the  singing  of  Swain- 
son's  thrush ;  not  by  any  resemblance  be- 
tween the  two  voices,  it  need  hardly  be  said, 
but  by  a  similarity  in  form.  Oven-birds 
were  here,  speaking  their  pieces  in  earnest 
schoolroom  fashion  ;  a  few  chippering  snow- 
birds excited  my  curiosity  (common  Junco 
hyemalis,  for  aught  I  could  discover,  but  I 
profess  no  certainty  on  so  nice  a  point)  ; 
and  here  and  there  a  flock  of  migrating 
white-throated  sparrows  bestirred  themselves 
lazily,  as  I  brushed  too  near  their  browsing- 
places. 

So  I  dallied  along,  accompanied  by  a 
staid,  good-natured,  woodchuck-loving  collie 
(he  had  joined  me  on  the  hotel  piazza,  with 
a  friendly  look  in  his  face,  as  much  as  to 
say,  "  The  top  of  the  morning  to  you,  stran- 
ger. If  you  are  out  for  a  walk,  I  'm  3'our 
dog"),  till  presently  I  came  to  a  clearing. 
Here  the  path  all  at  once  disappeared,  and 


158  VIRGINIA 

I  made  no  serious  effort  to  pick  it  up  again. 
Why  should  I  go  farther?  I  could  never 
be  farther  from  the  world,  nor  was  I  likely 
to  find  anywhere  a  more  inviting  spot ;  and 
so,  climbing  the  stony  hillside,  over  beds  of 
trailing  arbutus  bloom  and  past  bunches 
of  birdfoot  violets,  I  sat  down  in  the  sun,  on 
a  cushion  of  long,  dry  grass. 

The  gentlest  of  zephyrs  was  stirring,  the 
very  breath  of  sjjring,  soft  and  of  a  delicious 
temperature.  My  New  England  cheeks, 
winter-crusted  and  still  half  benumbed,  felt 
it  only  in  intermittent  puffs,  but  the  pine 
leaves,  more  sensitive,  kept  up  a  continuous 
murmur.  Close  about  me  —  close  enough, 
but  not  too  close  —  stood  the  hills.  At  my 
back,  filling  the  horizon  in  that  direction, 
stretched  an  unbroken  ridge,  some  hundreds 
of  feet  loftier  than  my  own  position,  and 
several  miles  in  length,  up  the  almost  per- 
pendicular slope  of  which,  a  very  rampart 
for  steepness,  ranks  of  evergreen  trees  were 
pushing  in  narrow  file.  Elsewhere  the  land 
rose  in  separate  elevations  ;  some  of  them, 
pale  with  distance,  showing  through  a  gap, 
or  peeping  over  the  shoulder  of  a  less  remote 
neighbor.     Nothing  else  was  in  sight;  and 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES      159 

there  I  sat  alone,  under  the  blue  sky,  — 
alone,  yet  with  no  lack  of  unobtrusive  soci- 
ety. 

At  brief  intervals  a  field  sparrow  some- 
where down  the  hillside  gave  out  a  sweet 
and  artless  strain,  clear  as  running  water 
and  soft  as  the  breath  of  springtime.  How 
gently  it  caressed  the  ear !  The  place  and 
the  day  had  found  a  voice.  Once  a  grouse 
drummed,  —  one  of  the  most  restful  of  all 
natural  sounds,  to  me  at  least,  "  drum- 
ming "  though  it  be,  speaking  always  of  fair 
weather  and  woodsy  quietness  and  peace  ; 
and  once,  to  my  surprise,  I  heard  a  clatter 
of  crossbill  notes,  though  I  saw  nothing  of 
the  birds,  —  restless  souls,  wanderers  up  and 
down  the  earth,  and,  after  the  habit  of  rest- 
less souls  in  general,  gregarious  to  the  last. 
A  buzzard  drifted  across  the  sky.  Like  the 
swan  on  still  St.  Mary's  Lake,  he  floated 
double,  bird  and  shadow.  A  flicker  shouted, 
and  a  chewink,  under  the  sweet-fern  and 
laurel  bushes,  stopped  his  scratching  once  in 
a  while  to  address  by  name  a  mate  or  fel- 
low traveler.  A  Canadian  nuthatch,  calling 
softly,  hung  back  downward  from  a  pine 
cone ;  and,  nearer   by,  a  solitary  vireo  sat 


160  VIBGINIA 

preening  his  feathers,  with  sweet  soliloquis- 
tic  chattering,  "the  very  sound  of  happy 
thoughts."  I  was  with  him  in  feeling, 
though  no  match  for  him  in  the  expression 
of  it. 

Again  and  again  I  took  the  brookside 
path,  and  spent  an  hour  of  dreams  in  this 
sunny  clearing  among  the  hills.  Day  by 
day  the  sun's  heat  did  its  work,  melting  the 
snow  of  the  shadbushes  and  the  bloodroot, 
and  bringing  out  the  first  scattered  flushes 
of  yellowish-green  on  the  lofty  tulip-trees, 
while  splashes  of  lively  purple  soon  made 
me  aware  that  the  ground  in  some  places 
was  as  thick  with  fringed  polygala  as  it  was 
in  other  places  with  hepatica  and  arbutus. 
No  doubt,  the  fair  procession,  beauty  follow- 
ing beauty,  would  last  the  season  through. 
A  white  violet,  new  to  me  (  Viola  striata), 
was  sprinkled  along  the  path,  and  on  the 
second  day,  as  I  went  up  the  hill  to  my  usual 
seat,  I  dropped  u])on  my  knees  before  a  per- 
fect vision  of  loveliness,  —  a  dwarf  iris,  only 
two  or  three  inches  above  the  ground,  of 
an  exquisite,  truly  heavenly  shade,  bluish- 
purple  or  violet-blue,  standing  alone  in  the 
midst  of  the  brown  last  year's  grass.     Un- 


A   NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES      161 

less  it  may  have  been  by  the  cloudberry  on 
Mount  Clinton,  I  was  never  so  taken  captive 
by  a  blossom.  I  worshiped  it  in  silence,  — 
the  grass  a  natural  prayer-rug,  —  feeling  all 
the  while  as  if  I  were  looking  upon  a  flower 
just  created.  It  would  not  be  found  in 
Gray,  I  told  myself.  But  it  was ;  and  be- 
fore many  days,  almost  to  my  sorrow,  it 
grew  to  be  fairly  common.  Once  I  hap- 
pened upon  a  white  specimen,  as  to  which, 
likewise,  the  Manual  had  been  before  me. 
New  flowers  are  almost  as  rare  as  new 
thoughts. 

It  was  amid  the  dead  grass  and  rust- 
colored  stones  of  this  same  hillside  that  I 
found,  also,  the  velvety,  pansy-like  variety 
of  the  birdfoot  violet,  here  and  there  a  plant 
surrounded  by  its  relatives  of  the  more 
every-day  sort.  This  was  my  first  sight  of 
it ;  but  I  saw  it  afterward  at  Natural  Bridge, 
and  again  at  Afton,  from  which  I  infer  that 
it  must  be  rather  common  in  the  mountain 
region  of  Virginia,  notwithstanding  Dr. 
Gray,  who,  as  I  now  notice,  speaks  as  if 
Maryland  were  its  southern  limit.  Indeed, 
to  judge  from  my  hasty  experience,  Alle- 
ghanian  Virginia  is  a  thriving-place  of  the 


162  VIRGINIA 

violet  family  in  general.  In  my  very  brief 
visit,  I  was  too  busy  (or  too  idle,  but  my 
idleness  was  really  of  a  busy  complexion)  to 
give  the  point  as  much  attention  as  I  now 
wish  I  had  given  to  it,  else  I  am  sure  I 
could  furnish  the  particulars  to  bear  out 
my  statement.  At  Pulaski,  without  any 
thought  of  making  a  list,  I  remarked  abun- 
dance of  Viola  2yedata,  V.  palmata^  and  V, 
sagittata,  with  V.  2^uhescens,  V.  canina 
Muhlenbergii^  and  four  forms  new  to  my 
eyes,  —  V.  i^edata  hicolor  and  V.  striata^ 
just  mentioned,  V.  hastata  and  V.  ^9w5es- 
cens  scahriuscula.  If  to  these  be  added  V. 
Canadensis  and  V.  rostrata,  both  of  them 
common  at  Natural  Bridge,  we  have  at  least 
a  pretty  good  assortment  to  be  picked  up 
by  a  transient  visitor,  whose  eyes,  moreover, 
were  oftener  in  the  trees  than  on  the 
ground. 

My  single  white  novelty,  V.  striata,  grew 
in  numbers  under  the  maples  in  the  grounds 
of  the  inn.  The  two  yellow  ones  were  found 
farther  away,  and  were  the  means  of  more 
excitement.  I  had  gone  down  the  creek,  one 
afternoon,  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  second 
furnace    (two   smelting-furnaces    being,    as 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     163 

far   as   a   stranger   could   judge,  the   main 
reason  of  the  town's  existence),  and  thence 
had  taken  a  side-road  that  runs  among  the 
hills    in    the    direction  of    Peak  Knob,  the 
highest  point  near  Pulaski.     A  lucky  mis- 
direction, or  misunderstanding,  sent  me  too 
far  to  the    right,  and   there    my  eye  rested 
suddenly  upon  a  bank  covered  with  strange- 
looking   yellow   violets;   like  puhescens    in 
their  manner  of  growth,  but  noticeably  dif- 
ferent in  the  shape  of  the  leaves,  and  notice- 
ably  not   pubescent.     A    reference   to   the 
Manual,  on  my  return  to  the  hotel,  showed 
them  to  be  F.  hastata,  —  "  rare  ;  "  and  that 
magic  word,  so  inspiriting  to  all  collectors, 
made  it  indispensable  that  I  should  visit  the 
place  again,  with  a  view  to  additional  speci- 
mens.    The  next  morning  it  rained  heavily, 
and  the  road,  true  to  its  Virginian  character, 
was  a  discouragement  to  travel,  a  diabolical 
misconjunction  of  slipperiness  and  supreme 
adhesiveness  ;  but  I  had  come  prepared  for 
such   difficulties,   and    anyhow,  in  vacation 
time  and  in  a  strange  country,  there  was  no 
staying  all  day  within  doors.     I  had  gath- 
ered my  specimens,  of  which,  happily,  there 
was  no  lack,  and  was  wandering  about  under 


164  VIRGINIA 

an  umbrella  among  the  dripping  bushes, 
seeing  what  I  could  see,  thinking  more  of 
birds  than  of  blossoms,  when  behold !  I 
stumbled  upon  a  second  novelty,  still  an- 
other yellow  violet,  suggestive  neither  of  V. 
pubescens  nor  of  anything  else  that  I  had 
ever  seen.  It  went  into  the  box  (I  could 
find  but  two  or  three  plants),  and  then  I 
felt  that  it  might  rain  never  so  hard,  the 
day  was  saved. 

A  hurried  reference  to  the  Manual  brought 
me  no  satisfaction,  and  I  dispatched  one  of 
the  plants  forthwith  to  a  friendly  authority, 
for  whom  a  comparison  with  herbarium 
specimens  would  supply  any  conceivable 
gaps  in  his  own  knowledge.  "  Here  is  some- 
thing not  described  in  Gray's  Manual,"  I 
wrote  to  him,  "  unless,"  I  added  (not  to  be 
caught  napping,  if  I  could  help  it),  "  it  be 
V.  pubescens  scabriuscuia.'^  And  I  made 
bold  to  say  further,  in  my  unscientific  enthu- 
siasm, that  whatever  the  plant  might  or 
might  not  turn  out  to  be,  I  did  not  believe 
it  was  properly  to  be  considered  as  a  variety 
of  V.  pubescens.  In  appearance  and  habit 
it  was  too  unlike  that  familiar  Massachusetts 
species.     If  he  could  see  it  growing,  I  was 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     165 

persuaded  he  would  be  of  the  same  opinion, 
though  I  was  well  enough  aware  of  my 
entire  unfitness  for  meddling  with  such  high 
questions. 

He  replied  at  once,  knowing  the  symp- 
toms of  collector's  fever,  it  is  to  be  presumed, 
and  the  value  of  a  prompt  treatment.  The 
violet  was  V.  puhescens  scahHuscula^  he 
said,  —  at  least,  it  was  the  plant  so  desig- 
nated by  the  Manual;  but  he  went  on  to 
tell  me,  for  my  comfort,  that  some  botanists 
accepted  it  as  of  specific  rank,  and  that  my 
own  impression  about  it  would  very  likely 
prove  to  be  correct.  Since  then  I  have  been 
glad  to  find  this  view  of  the  question  sup- 
ported by  Messrs.  Britton  and  Brown  in 
their  new  Illustrated  Flora,  where  the  plant 
is  listed  as  V.  scahriuscula.  As  to  all  of 
which  it  may  be  subjoined  that  the  less  a 
man  knows,  the  prouder  he  feels  at  having 
made  a  good  guess.  It  would  be  too  bad  if 
so  common  an  evil  as  ignorance  were  not 
attended  by  some  slight  compensations. 

These  novelties  in  violets,  so  interesting 
to  the  finder,  if  to  nobody  else  (though  since 
the  time  here  spoken  of  he  has  seen  the 
"  rare  "  hastata  growing  broadcast,  literally 


166  VIRGINIA 

by  tlie  acre,  in  the  woodlands  of  southwest- 
ern North  Carolina),  were  gathered,  as  be- 
fore said,  not  far  from  the  foot  of  Peak 
Knob.  From  the  moment  of  my  arrival  in 
Pulaski  I  had  had  my  eye  upon  that  emi- 
nence, the  highest  of  the  hills  round  about, 
looking  to  be,  as  I  was  told  it  was,  a  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  valley  level,  or  some 
three  thousand  feet  above  tide-water.  I  call 
it  Peak  Knob,  but  that  was  not  the  name  I 
first  heard  for  it.  On  the  second  afternoon 
of  my  stay  I  had  gone  through  the  town  and 
over  some  shadeless  fields  beyond,  following 
a  crooked,  hard-baked,  deeply  rutted  road, 
till  I  found  myself  in  a  fine  piece  of  old 
woods,  —  oaks,  tulip-trees  (poplars,  the 
Southern  people  call  them),  black  walnuts, 
and  the  like  ;  leafless  now,  all  of  them,  and 
silent  as  the  grave,  but  certain  a  few  days 
hence  to  be  alive  with  wings  and  vocal  with 
spring  music.  In  imagination  I  was  already 
beholding  them  populous  with  chats,  indigo- 
birds,  wood  pewees,  wood  thrushes,  and 
warblers  (it  is  one  of  our  ornithological 
pleasures  to  make  such  anticipatory  cata- 
logues in  unfamiliar  places),  when  my  pro- 
phetic  vision   was    interrupted    by  the   ap- 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     167 

proach  of  a  cart,  in  which  sat  a  man  driving 
a  pair  of  oxen  by  means  of  a  single  rope 
line.  He  stopped  at  once  on  being  accosted, 
and  we  talked  of  this  and  that ;  the  inquisi- 
tive traveler  asking  such  questions  as  came 
into  his  head,  and  the  wood-carter  answering 
them  one  by  one  in  a  neighborly,  unhurried 
spirit.  Along  with  the  rest  of  my  interroga- 
tories I  inquired  the  name  of  the  high  moun- 
tain yonder,  beyond  the  valley.  "  That  is 
Peach  Knob,"  he  replied,  —  or  so  I  under- 
stood him.  "  Peach  Knob  ?"  said  I.  "Why 
is  that?  Because  of  the  peaches  raised 
there?"  "No,  they  just  call  it  that,"  he 
answered  ;  but  he  added,  as  an  afterthought, 
that  there  were  some  peach  orchards,  he  be- 
lieved, on  the  southern  slope.  Perhaps  he 
had  said  "  Peak  Knob,"  and  was  too  polite  to 
correct  a  stranger's  hardness  of  hearing. 
At  all  events,  the  mountain  appeared  to  be 
generally  known  by  that  more  reasonable- 
sounding  if  somewhat  tautological  appella- 
tion. 

By  whatever  name  it  should  be  called,  I 
was  on  my  way  to  scale  it  when  I  found  the 
roadside  bright  with  hastate-leaved  violets, 
as  before  described.     My  mistaken  course, 


168  VIRGINIA 

and  some  ill-considered  attempts  I  made  to 
correct  the  same  by  striking  across  lots, 
took  me  so  far  out  of  the  way,  and  so  much 
increased  the  labor  of  the  ascent,  that  the 
afternoon  was  already  growing  short  when 
I  reached  the  crest  of  the  ridge  below  the 
actual  peak,  or  knob ;  and  as  my  mood  was 
not  of  the  most  ambitious,  and  the  clouds 
had  begun  threatening  rain,  I  gave  over  the 
climb  at  that  point,  and  sat  down  on  the 
edge  of  the  ridge,  having  the  wood  behind 
me,  to  regain  my  breath  and  enjoy  the  land- 
scape. 

A  little  below,  on  the  knolls  halfway  up 
the  mountain,  was  a  settlement  of  colored 
mountaineers,  a  dozen  or  so  of  scattered 
houses,  each  surrounded  by  a  garden  and 
orchard  patch,  —  apple-trees,  cherry-trees, 
and  a  few  peach-trees,  with  currant  and 
gooseberry  bushes ;  a  really  thrifty-seeming 
alpine  hamlet,  with  a  maze  of  winding  by- 
paths and  half -worn  carriage-roads  making 
down  from  it  to  the  highway  below.  With 
or  without  reason,  it  struck  me  as  a  thing  to 
be  surprised  at,  this  colony  of  black  high- 
landers. 

The  distance  was  all  a  grand  confusion  of 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     169 

mountains,  one  crowding  another  on  the 
horizon ;  some  nearer,  some  farther  away, 
with  one  lofty  and  massive  peak  in  the  north- 
east lording'  it  over  the  rest.  Close  at  hand 
in  the  valley,  at  my  left,  lay  the  city  of  Pu- 
laski, with  its  furnaces,  —  a  mile  or  two 
apart,  having  a  stretch  of  open  country  be- 
tween, —  its  lazy  creek,  and  its  multitudi- 
nous churches.  A  Pulaskian  would  find  it 
hard  to  miss  of  heaven,  it  seemed  to  me. 
Everywhere  else  the  foreground  was  a  grassy, 
pastoral  country,  broken  by  occasional 
patches  of  leafless  woods,  and  showing  here 
and  there  a  solitary  house,  —  a  scene  widely 
unlike  that  from  any  Massachusetts  moun- 
tain of  anything  near  the  same  altitude. 
Hereabout  (and  one  reads  the  same  story  in 
traveling  over  the  State)  men  do  not  huddle 
together  in  towns,  and  get  their  bread  by 
making  things  in  factories,  but  are  still 
mostly  tillers  of  the  soil,  planters  and  gra- 
ziers, with  elbow-room  and  breathing-space. 
The  more  cities  and  villages,  the  more  woods, 
—  such  appears  to  be  the  law.  In  Massa- 
chusetts there  are  six  or  seven  times  as  many 
inhabitants  to  the  square  mile  as  there  are 
in  Virginia ;  yet  Massachusetts  seen   from 


170  VIRGINIA 

its  hilltops  is  all  a  forest,  and  Virginia  a 
cleared  country. 

Kain  began  falling  by  the  time  the  valley 
was  reached,  on  my  return,  and  coming  to  a 
store  in  the  vicinity  of  the  lower  furnace,  — 
the  one  store  of  that  suburb,  so  far  as  I 
could  discover,  —  I  stepped  inside,  partly 
for  shelter,  partly  to  see  the  people  at  their 
Saturday  shopping.  A  glance  at  the  walls 
and  the  show-cases  made  it  plain  that  one 
store  was  enough.  You  had  only  to  ask  for 
what  you  wanted :  a  shotgun,  a  revolver,  a 
violin  case,  a  shovel,  a  plug  of  tobacco,  a 
pound  of  sugar,  a  coffee-pot,  a  dress  pattern, 
a  ribbon,  a  necktie,  a  pair  of  trousers,  or 
what  not.  The  merchant  might  have  written 
over  his  door,  "  Humani  nihil  alienum  ;  " 
if  he  had  been  a  city  shopkeeper,  he  might 
even  have  called  his  establishment  a  depart- 
ment store,  and  filled  the  Sunday  news- 
papers with  the  wonders  of  it.  Then  it 
would  have  been  but  a  step  to  the  governor's 
chair,  or  possibly  to  a  seat  in  the  national 
council. 

The  place  was  like  a  beehive ;  customers 
of  both  sexes  and  both  colors  going  and 
coming  with  a  ceaseless  buzz  of  gossip  and 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGE  AN  lES     171 

bargaining,  while  the  proprietor  and  his 
clerks  —  two  of  them  smoking  cigarettes  — 
bustled  to  and  fro  behind  the  counters,  im- 
proving the  shining  hour.  One  strapping 
young  colored  man  standing  near  me  in- 
quired for  suspenders,  and,  on  having  an 
assortment  placed  before  him,  selected  with- 
out hesitation  (it  is  a  good  customer  who 
knows  his  own  mind)  a  brilliant  yellow  pair 
embroidered  or  edged  with  equally  brilliant 
red.  Having  bought  them,  at  an  outlay  of 
twelve  cents,  he  proceeded  to  the  piazza, 
where  he  took  off  his  coat  and  put  them  on. 
That  was  what  he  had  bought  them  for. 
His  taste  was  impressionistic,  I  thought. 
He  believed  in  the  primary  colors.  And 
why  quarrel  with  him  ?  "  Dear  child  of 
Nature,  let  them  rail,"  I  was  ready  to  say. 
It  is  not  Mother  Nature,  but  Dame  Fash- 
ion, another  person  altogether,  and  a  most 
ridiculous  old  body,  who  prescribes  that 
masculine  humanity  shall  never  consider  it- 
self "  dressed  "  except  in  funereal  black  and 
white. 

What  Nature  herself  thinks  of  colors,  and 
what  freedom  she  uses  in  mixing  them,  was 
to  be  newly  impressed  upon  me  this  very 


172  VIRGINIA 

afternoon,  on  my  walk  homeward.  In  a  wet 
place  near  the  edge  of  the  woods,  at  some 
distance  from  the  road,  —  so  sticky  after  the 
rain  that  I  was  thankful  to  keep  away  from 
it,  —  I  came  suddenly  upon  a  truly  magnifi- 
cent display  of  Virginia  lungwort,  a  flower 
that  I  half  remembered  to  have  seen  at  one 
time  and  another  in  gardens,  but  here  grow- 
ing in  a  garden  of  its  own,  and  after  a  man- 
ner to  put  cultivation  to  the  blush.  The 
homely  place,  nothing  but  the  muddy  border 
of  a  pool,  was  glorified  by  it ;  the  flowers  a 
vivid  blue  or  bluish-purple,  and  the  buds 
bright  pink.  The  plants  are  of  a  weedy 
sort,  little  to  my  fancy,  and  the  blossoms, 
taken  by  themselves,  are  not  to  be  compared 
for  an  instant  with  such  modest  woodland 
beauties  as  were  spoken  of  a  few  pages  back, 
trailing  arbutus,  fringed  polygala,  and  the 
vernal  fleur-de-lis  ;  but  the  color,  seen  thus 
in  the  mass,  and  come  upon  thus  unexpect- 
edly, was  a  memorable  piece  of  splendor. 
Such  pictures,  humble  as  they  may  seem, 
and  little  as  they  may  be  regarded  at  the 
time,  are  often  among  the  best  rewards  of 
travel.  Memory  has  ways  of  her  own,  and 
treasures  what  trifles  she  will. 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     173 

And  with  another  of  her  trifles  let  me  be 
done  with  this  part  of  my  story.  There  was 
still  the  end  of  the  afternoon  to  spare,  and, 
the  rain  being  over,  I  skirted  the  woods, 
walking  and  standing  still  by  turns,  till  all 
at  once  out  of  a  thicket  just  before  me  came 
the  voice  of  a  bird,  —  a  brown  thrasher,  I 
took  it  to  be,  —  running  over  his  song  in  the 
very  smallest  of  undertones ;  phrase  after 
phrase,  each  with  its  natural  emphasis  and 
cadence,  but  all  barely  audible,  though  the 
singer  could  be  only  a  few  feet  away.  It 
was  wonderful,  the  beauty  of  the  muted 
voice  and  the  fluency  and  perfection  of  the 
tune.  The  music  ceased ;  and  then,  after  a 
moment,  I  heard,  several  times  repeated, 
still  only  a  breath  of  sound,  the  mew  of  a 
catbird.  With  that  I  drew  a  step  or  two 
nearer,  and  there  the  bird  sat,  motionless 
and  demure,  as  if  music  and  a  listener  were 
things  equally  remote  from  his  conscious- 
ness. What  was  in  his  thoughts  I  know  not. 
He  may  have  been  tuning  up,  simply,  mak- 
ing sure  of  his  technique,  rehearsing  upon 
a  dumb  keyboard.  Possibly,  as  men  and 
women  do,  he  had  sung  without  knowing  it, 
*-—  dreaming  of  a  last  year's  mate  or  of  sum- 


174  VIRGINIA 

mer  days  coming,  —  or  out  of  mere  comfort- 
able vacancy  of  mind.  Catbirds  are  not 
among  my  dearest  favorites ;  a  little  too 
fussy,  somewhat  too  well  aware  of  them- 
selves, I  generally  think ;  more  than  a  little 
too  fragmentary  in  their  effusions,  begin- 
ning and  beginning,  and  never  getting  under 
way,  like  an  improviser  who  cannot  find  his 
theme ;  but  this  bird  in  the  Alleghanies 
sang  as  bewitching  a  song  as  my  ears  ever 
listened  to. 


n 

My  spring  campaign  in  Virginia  was 
planned  in  the  spirit  of  the  old  war-time 
bulletin,  "  All  quiet  on  the  Potomac ; " 
happiness  was  to  be  its  end,  and  idleness  its 
means  ;  and  so  far,  at  least,  as  my  stay  at 
Pulaski  was  concerned,  this  peaceful  design 
was  weU  carried  out.  There  was  nothing 
there  to  induce  excessive  activity  :  no  glori- 
ous mountain  summit  whose  daily  beckoning 
must  sooner  or  later  be  heeded ;  no  long 
forest  roads  of  the  kind  that  will  not  let 
a  man's  imagination  alone  till  he  has  seen 
the  end  of  them.     The  town  itself  is  small 


A  NOOK  IN    THE  ALLEGHANIES      175 

and  compact,  so  that  it  was  no  great  jaunt 
to  get  away  from  it,  and  such  woods  as 
especially  invited  exploration  lay  close  at 
hand.  In  short,  it  was  a  place  where  even 
a  walking  naturalist  found  it  easy  to  go 
slowly,  and  to  spend  a  due  share  of  every 
day  in  sitting  still,  which  latter  occupation, 
so  it  be  engaged  in  neither  upon  a  piazza 
nor  on  a  lawn,  is  one  of  the  best  uses  of 
those  fullest  parts  of  a  busy  man's  life,  his 
so-called  vacations. 

The  measure  of  my  indolence  may  be 
estimated  from  the  fact  that  the  one  really 
picturesque  road  in  the  neighborhood  was 
left  undiscovered  till  nearly  the  last  day  of 
my  sojourn.  It  takes  its  departure  from 
the  village^  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
the  hotel,  and  the  friendly  manager  of  the 
house,  who  seemed  himself  to  have  some  idea 
of  such  pleasures  as  I  was  in  quest  of,  com- 
mended its  charms  to  me  very  shortly  after 
my  arrival.     So  I  recollected  afterward,  but 

1  Pulaski,  or  Pulaski  City  (the  place  goes  by  both 
names,  —  the  second  a  reminiscence  of  its  "  booming  " 
days,  I  should  suppose),  is  so  intermediate  in  size  and 
appearance  that  I  find  myself  speaking  of  it  by  turns  as 
vUlage,  town,  and  city,  with  no  thought  of  inconsistency 
or  special  inapprojiriateness. 


176  VIRGINIA 

for  the  time  I  somehow  allowed  the  signifi- 
cance of  his  words  to  escape  me,  else  I 
should,  no  doubt,  have  traveled  the  road 
again  and  again.  As  things  were,  I  spent 
but  a  single  forenoon  upon  it,  and  went 
only  as  far  as  the  "height  of  land." 

The  mountain  road,  as  the  townspeople 
call  it,  rims  over  the  long  ridge  which  fills 
the  horizon  east  of  Pulaski,  and  down  into 
the  valley  on  the  other  side.  It  has  its 
beginning,  at  least,  in  a  gap  similar  in  all 
respects  to  the  one,  some  half  a  mile  to  the 
northward,  into  which  I  had  so  many  times 
followed  a  footpath,  as  already  fully  set 
forth.  The  traveler  has  first  to  pass  half 
a  dozen  or  more  of  cabins,  where,  if  he  is 
a  stranger,  he  will  probably  find  himseK 
watched  out  of  sight  with  flattering  unanim- 
ity by  the  curious  inmates.  In  my  time, 
at  all  events,  a  solitary  foot  -  passenger 
seemed  to  be  regarded  as  nothing  short  of 
a  phenomenon.  What  was  more  agreeable, 
I  met  here  a  little  procession  of  happy-look- 
ing black  children  returning  to  the  town 
loaded  with  big  branches  of  flowering  apple- 
trees;  a  sight  which  for  some  reason  put 
me  in   mind    of  a  child,  a  tiny  thing,  —  a 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIE6      1T7 

veritable  pickaninny,  —  whom  I  had  passed, 
some  years  before,  near  Tallahassee,  and 
who  pleased  me  by  exclaiming  to  a  compan- 
ion, as  a  dove  cooed  in  the  distance,  "  Listen 
dat  mournin'  dove  !  "  I  wondered  whether 
such  children,  living  nearer  to  nature  than 
some  of  us,  might  not  be  peculiarly  suscepti- 
ble to  natural  sights  and  sounds. 

Before  one  of  the  last  cabins  stood  three 
white  children,  and  as  they  gazed  at  me  fix- 
edly I  wished  them  "  Good-morning ; "  but 
they  stared  and  answered  nothing.  Then, 
when  I  had  passed,  a  woman's  sharp  voice 
called  from  within,  "  Why  don't  you  speak 
when  anybody  speaks  to  you?  I'd  have 
some  manners,  if  I  was  you."  And  I  per- 
ceived that  if  the  boys  and  girls  were  grow- 
ing up  in  rustic  diffidence  (not  the  most 
ill-mannered  condition  in  the  world,  by  any 
means),  it  was  not  for  lack  of  careful  mater- 
nal instruction. 

This  gap,  like  its  fellow,  had  its  own 
brook,  which  after  a  time  the  road  left  on 
one  side  and  began  climbing  the  mountain 
by  a  steeper  and  more  direct  course  than 
the  water  had  followed.  Here  were  more  of 
the  rare  hastate-leaved  violets,  and  another 


178  VIRGINIA 

bunch  of  the  barren  strawberry,  with  hepat- 
ica,  fringed  polygala,  mitrewort,  bloodroot, 
and  a  pretty  show  of  a  remarkably  large 
and  handsome  chickweed,  of  which  I  had 
seen  much  also  in  other  places,  —  Stellaria 
puhera^  or  "  great  chickweed,"  as  I  made  it 
out. 

I  was  admiring  these  lowly  beauties  as  I 
idled  along  (there  was  little  else  to  admire 
just  then,  the  wood  being  scrubby  and  the 
ground  lately  burned  over),  when  I  came  to 
a  standstill  at  the  sound  of  a  strange  song 
from  the  bushy  hillside  a  few  paces  behind 
me.  The  bird,  whatever  it  was,  had  let  me 
go  by,  —  as  birds  so  often  do,  —  and  then 
had  broken  out  into  music.  I  turned  back 
at  once,  and  made  short  work  of  the  mys- 
tery,—  a  worm-eating  warbler.  Thanks  to 
the  fire,  there  was  no  cover  for  it,  had  it  de- 
sired any.  I  had  seen  a  bird  of  the  same 
species  a  few  days  previously  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  town,  —  looking  like  a  red- 
eyed  vireo  rigged  out  with  a  fanciful  striped 
head-dress,  —  and  sixteen  years  before  I  had 
fallen  in  with  a  few  specimens  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  but  this  was  my  first 
hearing  of  the  song.     The  queer  little  crea- 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     179 

ture  was  picking  about  the  ground,  feeding, 
but  every  minute  or  two  mounted  some  low 
perch,  —  a  few  inches  seemed  to  satisfy  its 
ambition,  —  and  delivered  itself  of  a  simple, 
short  trill,  similar  to  the  pine  warbler's  for 
length  and  form,  but  in  a  guttural  voice 
decidedly  unlike  the  pine  warbler's  clear, 
musical  whistle.  It  was  not  a  very  pleasing 
song,  in  itself  considered,  but  I  was  very 
much  pleased  to  hear  it ;  for  let  the  worldly- 
minded  say  what  they  will,  a  new  bird-song 
is  an  event.  With  a  single  exception,  it 
was  the  only  new  one,  I  believe,  of  my  Vir- 
ginia trip. 

The  worm-eating  warbler,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  add,  is  one  of  the  less  widely  known 
members  of  its  numerous  family ;  plainness 
itself  in  its  appearance,  save  for  its  showy 
cap,  and  very  lowly  and  sedate  in  its  habits. 
The  few  that  I  have  ever  had  sight  of,  per- 
haps a  dozen  in  all,  have  been  on  the  ground 
or  close  to  it,  though  one,  I  remember,  was 
traveling  about  the  lower  part  of  a  tree- 
trunk  after  the  manner  of  a  black-and-white 
creeper ;  and  all  observers,  so  far  as  I  know, 
agree  in  pronouncing  the  song  an  exception- 
ally meagre  and  dry  affair.     Ordinarily  it 


180  VIRGINIA 

has  been  likened  to  that  of  the  chipper,  but 
my  bird  had  nothing  like  the  chipper's  gift 
of  continuance. 

This  worm-eater's  song  must  count  as  the 
best  ornithological  incident  of  the  forenoon, 
since  nothing  else  is  quite  so  good  as  abso- 
lute novelty ;  but  I  was  glad  also  to  see 
for  the  first  time  hereabouts  four  commoner 
birds,  —  the  pileated  woodpecker,  the  sap- 
sucker  (yellow-bellied  woodpecker),  the 
rose  -  breasted  grosbeak,  and  the  black- 
throated  blue  warbler.  I  had  undertaken  a 
local  list,  of  course,  —  a  lazier  kind  of  col- 
lecting, —  and  so  was  thankful  for  small 
favors.  In  the  way  of  putting  a  shine  upon 
common  things  the  collecting  spirit  is  second 
only  to  genius.  I  was  glad  to  see  them,  I 
say ;  but,  to  be  exact,  I  saw  only  three  out 
of  the  four.  The  big  woodpecker  was  heard, 
not  seen.  And  while  I  stood  still,  hoping 
that  he  would  repeat  himself,  and  possibly 
show  himself,  I  heard  a  chorus  of  crossbill 
notes,  —  like  the  cries  of  barnyard  chickens 
a  few  weeks  old,  — and,  looking  up,  descried 
the  authors  of  them,  a  flock  of  ten  birds 
flying  across  the  valley.  They  were  not 
new,  even  to  my  Pulaski  notebook,  but  they 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     181 

gave  me,  for  all  that,  an  exhilarating  sensa- 
tion of  unexpectedness.  Crossbills  are  as- 
sociated in  my  mind  with  Massachusetts 
winters  and  New  Hampshire  summers  and 
autumns.  On  the  30th  of  April,  and  in 
southwestern  Virginia,  —  a  long  way  from 
New  Hampshire  to  the  mind  of  a  creature 
whose  handiest  mode  of  locomotion  is  by 
rail,  —  they  seemed  out  of  place  and  out  of 
season  ;  the  more  so  because,  to  the  best 
of  my  knowledge,  there  were  no  very  high 
mountains  or  extensive  coniferous  forests 
anywhere  in  the  neighborhood.  However, 
my  sensation  of  surprise,  agreeable  though 
it  was,  and  therefore  not  to  be  regretted, 
had,  on  reflection,  no  very  good  reason  to 
give  for  itself.  Crossbills  are  a  kind  of 
gypsies  among  birds,  and  one  ought  not  to 
be  astonished,  I  suppose,  at  meeting  them 
almost  anywhere.  Some  days  after  this 
(May  12),  in  the  national  cemetery  at  Ar- 
lington (across  the  Potomac  from  Washing- 
ton), I  glanced  up  into  a  low  spruce-tree  in 
response  to  the  call  of  an  orchard  oriole, 
and  there,  at  work  upon  the  cones,  hung  a 
flock  of  five  crossbills,  three  of  them  in  red 
plumage.     They  were  feeding,  and  had  no 


182  VIRGINIA 

thought  of  doing  anything  else.  For  the 
half-hour  that  I  stayed  by  them  —  some 
other  interesting  birds,  a  true  migratory 
wave,  in  fact,  being  near  at  hand  —  they 
remained  in  that  treetop  without  uttering  a 
syllable ;  and  two  hours  later,  when  I  came 
down  the  same  path  again,  they  had  moved 
but  two  trees  away,  and  were  still  eating  in 
silence,  paying  absolutely  no  heed  to  me 
as  I  walked  under  them.  Many  kinds  of 
northward-bound  migrants  were  in  the  ceme- 
tery woods.  Perhaps  these  ravenous  cross- 
bills 1  were  of  the  party.  I  took  them  for 
stragglers,  at  any  rate,  not  remembering  at 
the  time  that  birds  of  their  sort  are  believed 
to  have  bred,  at  least  in  one  instance,  within 
the  District  of  Columbia.  Probably  they 
were  stragglers,  but  whether  from  the  for- 
ests of  the  North  or  from  the  peaks  of  the 
southern  Alleghanies  is  of  course  a  point 
beyond  my  ken. 

So  far  as  our  present  knowledge  of  them 
goes,  crossbills  seem  in  a  peculiar  sense  to 

1  Mr.  H.  W.  Henshaw  once  told  me  about  a  flock  that 
appeared  in  winter  in  the  grounds  of  the  Smithsonian  In- 
stitution, so  exhausted  that  they  could  be  picked  off  the 
trees  like  apples. 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     183 

be  a  law  unto  themselves.  In  northern  New- 
England  they  are  said  to  lay  their  eggs  in 
late  winter  or  early  spring,  when  the  tem- 
perature is  liable,  or  even  certain,  to  run 
many  degrees  below  zero.  Yet,  if  the  no- 
tion takes  them,  a  pair  will  raise  a  brood  in 
Massachusetts  or  in  Maryland  in  the  middle 
of  May ;  which  strikes  me,  I  am  bound  to 
say,  as  a  far  more  reasonable  and  Christian- 
like proceeding.  And  the  same  erratic  qual- 
ity pertains  to  their  ordinary,  every -day 
behavior.  Even  their  simplest  flight  from 
one  hill  to  another,  as  I  witnessed  it  here  in 
Virginia,  for  example,  has  an  air  of  being 
all  a  matter  of  chance.  Now  they  tack  to 
the  right,  now  to  the  left,  now  in  close  order, 
now  every  one  for  himself;  no  member  of 
the  flock  appearing  to  know  just  how  the 
course  lies,  and  all  hands  calling  incessantly, 
as  the  only  means  of  coming  into  port  to- 
gether. 

When  I  spoke  just  now  of  the  worm- 
eating  warbler's  song  as  almost  the  only 
new  one  heard  in  Virginia,  I  ought  perhaps 
to  have  guarded  my  words.  I  meant  to  say 
that  the  worm-eater  was  almost  the  only 
species  that  I  there  heard  sing  for  the  first 


184  VIRGINIA 

time,  —  a  somewhat  different  matter ;  for 
new  songs,  happily,  —  songs  new  to  the  in- 
dividual listener,  —  are  by  no  means  so  in- 
frequent as  the  songs  of  new  birds.  On  the 
very  forenoon  of  which  I  am  now  writing,  I 
heard  another  strain  that  was  every  whit  as 
novel  to  my  ear  as  the  worm-eater's,  —  as 
novel,  indeed,  as  if  it  had  been  the  work  of 
some  bird  from  the  other  side  of  the  planet. 
Again  and  again  it  was  given  out,  at  tanta- 
lizing intervals,  and  I  could  not  so  much  as 
guess  at  the  identity  of  the  singer ;  partly, 
it  may  be,  because  of  the  feverish  anxiety  I 
was  in  lest  he  should  get  away  from  me  in 
that  endless  mountain-side  forest.  Every 
repetition  I  thought  would  be  the  last,  and 
the  bird  gone  forever.  Finally,  as  I  edged 
nearer  and  nearer,  half  a  step  at  once,  with 
infinite  precaution,  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
chickadee.  A  chickadee !  Could  he  be 
doing  that  ?  Yes  ;  for  I  watched  him,  and 
saw  it  done.  And  these  were  the  notes,  or 
the  best  that  my  pencil  could  make  of  them  : 
twee^  twee^  twee  (very  quick),  twitty,  twitty^ 
—  the  first  measure  in  a  thin,  wire-drawn 
tone,  the  second  a  full,  clear  whistle.  Some- 
times the  three  twees  were  slurred  almost 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     185 

into  one.  Altogether,  the  effect  was  most 
singular.  I  had  never  heard  anything  in 
the  least  resembling  it,  familiar  as  I  had 
thought  myself  for  some  years  with  the  nor- 
mal four-syllabled  song  of  Icarus  caroluien- 
sis.  For  the  moment  I  was  half  disposed 
to  be  angry,  —  so  much  excitement,  and  so 
absurd  an  outcome ;  but  on  the  whole  it  is 
very  good  fun  to  be  fooled  in  this  way  by  a 
bird  who  happens  to  have  invented  a  tune 
of  his  own.  Besides,  we  are  all  believers  in 
originality,  —  are  we  not  ?  —  whatever  our 
own  practice. 

Human  travelers  were  infrequent  enough 
to  be  little  more  than  a  welcome  diversion : 
two  young  men  on  horseback ;  a  solitary 
foot-passenger,  who  kindly  pointed  out  a 
trail  by  which  a  long  elbow  in  the  road 
could  be  saved  on  the  descent ;  and,  near 
the  top  of  the  mountain,  a  four-horse  cart, 
the  driver  of  which  was  riding  one  of  the 
wheel-horses.  At  the  summit  I  chose  a  seat 
(not  the  first  one  of  the  jaunt,  by  any  means) 
and  surveyed  the  valley  beyond.  It  lay 
directly  at  my  feet,  the  mountain  dropping 
to  it  almost  at  a  bound,  and  the  stunted 
budding  trees  offered  the  least  possible  ob- 


186  VIRGINIA 

struction  to  the  view.  Narrow  as  the  valley- 
was,  there  was  nothing  else  to  be  seen  in 
that  direction.  Immediately  behind  it  dense 
clouds  hung  so  low  that  from  my  altitude 
there  was  no  looking  under  them.  In  one 
respect  it  was  better  so,  as  sometimes,  for 
the  undistracted  enjoyment  of  it,  a  single 
painting  is  better  than  a  gallery. 

There  Was  nothing  peculiar  or  striking 
in  the  scene,  nothing  in  the  slightest  degree 
romantic  or  extraordinary :  a  common  patch 
of  earth,  without  so  much  as  the  play  of  sun- 
light and  shadow  to  set  it  off ;  a  pretty  val- 
ley, closely  shut  in  between  a  mountain  and 
a  cloud  ;  a  quiet,  grassy  place,  fenced  into 
small  farms,  the  few  scattered  houses,  per- 
haps half  a  dozen,  each  with  its  cluster  of 
outbuildings  and  its  orchard  of  blossoming 
fruit-trees.  Here  and  there  cattle  were  graz- 
ing, guinea  fowls  were  calling  2^otracJc  in 
tones  which  not  even  the  magic  of  distance 
could  render  musical,  and  once  the  loud  baa 
of  a  sheep  came  all  the  way  up  the  mountain 
side.  If  the  best  reward  of  climbing  be  to 
look  afar  off,  the  next  best  is  to  look  down 
thus  into  a  tiny  valley  of  a  world.  In  either 
case,  the  gazer  must  take  time  enough,  and 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGE  AN lES     187 

be  free  enough  in  his  spirit,  to  become  a 
part  of  what  he  sees.  Then  he  may  hope  to 
carry  something  of  it  home  with  him. 

It  was  soon  after  quitting  the  summit,  on 
my  return,  —  for  I  left  the  valley  a  picture 
(I  can  see  it  yet),  and  turned  back  by  the 
way  I  had  come,  —  that  I  fell  in  with  the 
grosbeaks  before  alluded  to :  a  single  taci- 
turn female  with  two  handsome  males  in 
devoted  and  tuneful  attendance  upon  her. 
Happy  creature  !  Among  birds,  so  far  as 
I  have  ever  been  able  to  gather,  the  gentler 
and  more  backward  sex  have  never  to  wait 
for  admirers.  Their  only  anxiety  lies  in 
choosing  one  rather  than  another.  That,  no 
doubt,  must  be  sometimes  a  trouble,  since, 
as  this  imperfect  world  is  constituted,  choice 
includes  rejection. 

The  law  is  general.  Even  in  the  modern 
pastime  which  we  dignify  as  the  "  observa- 
tion of  nature  "  there  is  no  evading  it.  If 
we  see  one  thing,  we  for  that  reason  are 
blind  to  another.  I  had  ascended  this 
mountain  road  at  a  snail's  pace,  never  walk- 
ing many  rods  together  without  a  halt,  — 
whatever  was  to  be  seen,  I  meant  to  see  it ; 
yet  now,  on  my  way  down,  my  eyes  fell  all 


188  VIRGINIA 

at  once  upon  a  bank  thickly  set  witli  plants 
quite  unknown  to  me.  There  they  stood, 
in  all  the  charms  of  novelty,  waiting  to  be 
discovered :  low  shrubs,  perhajis  two  feet  in 
height,  of  a  very  odd  appearance,  —  not  con- 
spicuous, exactly,  but  decidedly  noticeable, 
—  covered  with  drooping  racemes  of  small 
chocolate-colored  flowers.  The}^  were  di- 
rectly upon  the  roadside.  With  half  an  eye, 
a  man  would  have  found  it  hard  work  to 
miss  them.  "  The  observation  of  nature  "  ! 
Verily  it  is  a  great  study,  and  its  devotees 
acquire  an  amazing  sharpness  of  vision. 
How  many  other  things,  equally  strange  and 
interesting,  had  I  left  unseen,  both  going 
and  coming?  I  ought  perhaps  to  have  been 
surprised  and  humiliated  by  such  an  experi- 
ence ;  but  I  cannot  say  that  either  emotion 
was  what  could  be  called  poignant.  I  have 
been  living  with  myself  for  a  good  many 
years  ;  and  besides,  as  was  remarked  just 
now,  all  our  doings  are  under  the  universal 
law  of  selection  and  exclusion.  On  the 
whole,  I  am  glad  of  it.  Life  will  relish  the 
longer  for  our  not  finding  everything  at 
once. 

The   identity  of   the   shrub  was   quickly 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES      189 

made  out,  the  vivid  yellow  of  the  inner  bark 
furnishing  a  clue  which  spared  me  the  labor 
of  a  formal  "  analysis."  It  was  Xanthoi^- 
rhiza  ajn {folia,  shrub  yellow-root,  —  a  name 
long  familiar  to  my  eye  from  having  been 
read  so  many  times  in  turning  the  leaves  of 
the  Manual,  on  one  hunt  and  another.  With 
a  new  song  and  a  new  flowering  plant,  the 
mountain  road  had  used  me  pretty  well,  after 
all  my  neglect  of  it. 

My  one  new  bird  at  Pulaski  —  and  the 
only  one  seen  in  Virginia  —  was  stumbled 
upon  in  a  grassy  field  on  the  farther  border 
of  the  town.  I  had  set  out  to  spend  an  hour 
or  two  in  a  small  wood  beyond  the  brickyard, 
and  was  cutting  the  corner  of  a  field  by  a 
footpath,  still  feeling  myself  in  the  city,  and 
not  yet  on  the  alert,  when  a  bird  flew  up 
before  me,  crossed  the  street,  and  dropped 
on  the  other  side  of  the  wall.  Half  seen  as 
it  was,  its  appearance  suggested  nothing  in 
particular ;  but  it  seemed  not  to  be  an  Eng- 
lish sparrow,  —  too  common  here,  as  it  is 
getting  to  be  everywhere,  —  and  of  course  it 
might  be  worth  attention.  It  is  one  capital 
advantage  of  being  away  from  home  that  we 
take  additional  encouragement  to  investigate 


190  VIRGINIA 

whatever  falls  in  our  way.  Before  I  could 
get  to  the  wall,  however,  the  bird  rose,  along 
with  two  or  three  Britishers,  and  perched 
before  me  in  a  thorn-bush.  Then  I  saw  at 
a  glance  that  it  must  be  a  lark  sparrow 
(^Chondestes).  With  those  magnificent 
headstripes  it  could  hardly  be  anything  else. 
What  a  prince  it  looked  !  —  a  prince  in  most 
ignoble  company.  It  \Vould  have  held  its 
rank  even  among  white-crowns,  of  which  it 
made  me  think  not  only  by  its  head-mark- 
ings, but  by  its  general  color  and  —  what 
was  perhaps  only  the  same  thing  —  a  certain 
cleanness  of  aspect.  Presently  it  flew  back 
to  the  field  out  of  which  I  had  frightened  it ; 
and  there  in  the  short  grass  it  continued 
feeding  for  a  long  half -hour,  while  I  stood, 
glass  in  hand,  ogling  it,  and  making  penciled 
notes  of  its  plumage,  point  by  point,  for 
comparison  with  Dr.  Coues's  description 
after  I  should  return  to  the  inn.  I  was  al- 
most directly  under  the  windows  of  a  house, 
—  of  a  Sunday  afternoon,  —  but  that  did 
not  matter.  Two  or  three  carriages  passed 
along  the  street,  but  I  let  them  go.  A 
new  bird  is  a  new  bird.  And  it  must  be 
admitted  that  neither  the  occupants  of  the 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES      191 

house  nor  the  people  in  the  carriages  be- 
trayed the  slightest  curiosity  as  to  my  un- 
conventional behavior.  The  bird,  for  its 
part,  minded  me  little  more.  It  was  en- 
grossed with  its  dinner,  and  uttered  no  sound 
beyond  two  or  three  tseeps,  in  which  I  could 
recognize  nothing  distinctive.  Its  silence 
was  a  disappointment ;  and  since  I  could  not 
waste  the  afternoon  in  watching  a  bird,  no 
matter  how  new  and  handsome,  that  would 
do  nothing  but  eat  grass  seed  (or  something 
else),  I  finally  took  the  road  again  and 
passed  on.  I  did  not  see  it  afterward,  though, 
under  fresh  accessions  of  curiosity,  and  for 
the  chance  of  hearing  it  sing,  I  went  in 
search  of  it  twice. 

From  a  reference  to  Dr.  Rives's  Catalogue 
of  the  Birds  of  the  Virginias,  which  I  had 
brought  with  me,  I  learned,  what  I  thought  I 
knew  already,  that  the  lark  sparrow,  abun- 
dantly at  home  in  the  interior  of  North  Amer- 
ica, is  merely  an  accidental  visitor  in  Vir- 
ginia. The  only  records  cited  by  Dr.  Rives 
are  those  of  two  specimens,  one  captured, 
the  other  seen,  in  and  near  Washington.  It 
seemed  like  a  perversity  of  fate  that  I, 
hardly  more  than  an  accidental  visitor  my- 


192  VIRGINIA 

self,  should  be  shown  a  bird  which  Dr.  Eives 
—  the  ornithologist  of  the  state,  we  may 
fairly  call  him  —  had  never  seen  within  the 
state  limits.  But  it  was  not  for  me  to  com- 
plain ;  and  for  that  matter,  it  is  nothing  new 
to  say  that  it  takes  a  green  hand  to  make 
discoveries.  I  knew  a  man,  only  a  few 
years  ago,  who,  one  season,  was  so  unin- 
structed  that  he  called  me  out  to  see  a  Hens- 
low's  bunting,  which  proved  to  be  a  song 
sparrow ;  but  the  very  next  year  he  found  a 
snowbird  summering  a  few  miles  from  Bos- 
ton (there  was  no  mistake  this  time),  —  a 
thing  utterly  without  precedent.  In  the 
same  way,  I  knew  of  one  lad  who  discovered 
a  brown  thrasher  wintering  in  Massachusetts, 
the  only  recorded  instance  ;  and  of  another 
who  went  to  an  ornithologist  of  experience 
begging  him  to  come  into  the  woods  and  see 
a  most  wonderful  many-colored  bird,  which 
turned  out,  to  the  experienced  man's  aston- 
ishment, to  be  nothing  less  rare  than  a  non- 
pareil bunting  !  Providence  favors  the  be- 
ginner, or  so  it  seems ;  and  the  beginner, 
on  his  part,  is  prepared  to  be  favored,  because 
to  him  everything  is  worth  looking  at. 
Dr.  Rives' s  catalogue  helped  me  to  a  some- 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     193 

what  lively  interest  in  another  bird,  one  so 
much  an  old  story  to  me  for  many  years 
that  of  itself  its  presence  or  absence  here 
would  scarcely  have  received  a  second 
thought.  I  speak  of  the  blue  golden-winged 
warbler.  It  is  common  in  Massachusetts, 
—  in  that  part  of  it,  at  least,  where  I  happen 
to  live,  —  and  I  have  found  it  abundant  in 
eastern  Tennessee.  That  it  should  be  at 
home  here  in  southwestern  Virginia,  so  near 
the  Tennessee  line  and  in  a  country  so  well 
adapted  to  its  tastes,  would  have  appeared 
to  me  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 
But  when  I  had  noted  my  first  specimens  — 
on  this  same  Sunday  afternoon  —  and  was 
back  at  the  hotel,  I  took  up  the  catalogue  to 
check  the  name  ;  and  there  I  found  the  bird 
entered  as  a  rare  migrant,  with  only  one 
record  of  its  capture  in  Virginia  proper,  and 
that  near  Washington.  Dr.  Rives  had  never 
met  with  it ! 

This  was  on  the  28th  of  April.  Two  days 
later  I  noticed  one  or  two  more,  —  probably 
two,  but  there  was  no  certainty  that  I  had 
not  run  upon  the  same  bird  twice  ;  and  on 
the  morning  of  May  1,  in  a  last  hurried  visit 
to  the  woods,  I  saw  two  together.     All  were 


194  VIRGINIA 

males  in  full  plumage,  and  one  of  the  last 
two  was  singing.  The  warbler  migration 
was  just  coming  on,  and  I  could  not  help 
believing  that  with  a  little  time  blue  golden- 
wings  would  grow  to  be  fairly  numerous. 
That,  of  course,  was  matter  of  conjecture. 
I  found  no  sign  of  the  species  at  Natural 
Bridge,  which  is  about  a  hundred  miles  from 
Pulaski  in  a  northeasterly  direction.  In 
Massachusetts  this  beautiful  warbler's  dis- 
tribution is  decidedly  local,  and  its  common- 
ness is  believed  to  have  increased  greatly  in 
the  last  twenty  years.  Possibly  the  same 
may  be  true  in  Virginia.  Possibly,  too,  my 
seeing  of  five  or  six  specimens,  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  city,  was  nothing  but  a  happy 
chance,  and  my  inference  from  it  a  pure  de- 
lusion. 

I  have  implied  that  the  warbler  migration 
was  approaching  its  height  on  the  1st  of  May. 
In  point  of  fact,  however,  the  brevity  of  my 
visit  —  and  perhaps  also  its  date,  neither 
quite  early  enough  nor  quite  late  enough  — 
rendered  it  impossible  for  me  to  gather  much 
as  to  the  course  of  this  always  interesting 
movement,  or  even  to  understand  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  little  of  it  that  came  under 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     195 

my  eye.  My  first  day's  walks  —  very  short 
and  altogether  at  haj^hazard,  and  that  of  the 
afternoon  as  good  as  thrown  away  —  showed 
but  three  species  of  warblers  ;  an  anomalous 
state  of  things,  especially  as  two  of  the  birds 
were  the  oven-bird  and  the  golden  warbler, 
neither  of  them  to  be  reckoned  among  the 
early  comers  of  the  family.  The  next  day  I 
saw  six  other  species,  including  such  prompt 
ones  as  the  pine-creeper  and  the  myrtle  bird, 
and  such  a  comparatively  tardy  one  as  the 
Blackburnian.  On  the  26th  three  additional 
names  were  listed,  —  the  blue  yellow-back, 
the  chestnut-side,  and  the  worm-eater.  Not 
until  the  fourth  day  was  anything  seen  or 
heard  of  the  black- throated  green.  This 
fact  of  itself  would  establish  the  worthless- 
ness  of  any  conclusions  that  might  be  drawn 
from  the  progress  of  events  as  I  had  noted 
them. 

On  the  28th,  when  my  first  blue  golden- 
wings  made  their  appearance,  there  were 
present  also  in  the  same  place  three  palm 
warblers,  —  my  only  meeting  with  them  in 
Virginia,  where  Dr.  Rives  marks  them  "  not 
common."  With  them,  or  in  the  same  small 
wood,  were  a  group  of  silent  red-eyed  vireos, 


196  VIRGINIA 

several  yellow-throated  vireos,  also  silent, 
myrtle  birds,  one  or  two  Blackburnians,  one 
or  two  chestnut-sides,  two  or  three  redstarts, 
and  one  oven-bird,  with  black-and-white 
creepers,  and  something  like  a  flock  (a  rare 
sight  for  me)  of  white-breasted  nuthatches, 
—  a  typical  body  of  migrants,  to  which  may 
be  added,  though  less  clearly  members  of 
the  same  party,  tufted  titmice,  Carolina 
chickadees,  white-throated  sparrows,  Caro- 
lina doves,  flickers,  downy  woodpeckers,  and 
brown  thrashers. 

It  is  a  curious  circumstance,  universally 
observed,  that  warblers,  with  a  few  partial 
exceptions,  —  blackpolls  and  myrtle  birds 
especially,  —  travel  thus  in  mixed  compa- 
nies ;  so  that  a  flock  of  twenty  birds  may  be 
found  to  contain  representatives  of  six,  eight, 
or  ten  species.  Whatever  its  explanation, 
the  habit  is  one  to  be  thankful  for  from  the 
field  student's  point  of  view.  The  pleasur- 
able excitement  which  the  semi-annual  war- 
bler movement  affords  him  is  at  least  several 
times  greater  than  it  could  be  if  each  species 
made  the  journey  by  itself.  Every  observer 
must  have  realized,  for  example,  how  com- 
paratively uninteresting  the  blackpoll  migra- 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     197 

tion  is,  particularly  in  the  autumn.  Com- 
paratively uninteresting,  I  say;  for  even 
with  the  birch-trees  swarming  with  black- 
polls,  each  exactly  like  its  fellow,  the  hope, 
slight  as  it  may  be,  of  lighting  upon  a  stray 
bay  breast  among  them  may  encourage  a  man 
to  keep  up  his  scrutiny,  leveling  his  glass 
upon  bird  after  bird,  looking  for  a  dash  of 
telltale  color  along  the  flanks,  till  at  last  he 
says,  "Nothing  but  blackpoUs,"  and  turns 
away  in  search  of  more  stirring  adventures. 
Students  of  natural  history,  like  less 
favored  people,  should  cultivate  philosophy  ; 
and  the  primary  lesson  of  philosophy  is  to 
make  the  best  of  things  as  they  are.  If  an 
expected  bird  fails  us,  we  are  not  therefore 
without  resources  and  compensations ;  we 
may  be  interested  in  the  fact  of  its  absence ; 
and  so  long  as  we  are  interested,  though  it 
be  only  in  the  endurance  of  privation,  life 
has  still  something  left  for  us.  Herein,  in 
part,  lies  the  value  to  the  traveling  student 
of  a  local  list  of  the  things  in  his  own  line. 
It  enables  him  to  keep  in  view  what  he  is 
missing,  and  so  to  increase  the  sum  of  his 
sensations.  One  of  my  surprises  at  Pulaski 
(and  a  surprise  is  better  than  nothing,  even 


198  VIRGINIA 

if  it  be  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  account) 
was  the  absence  of  the  phoebe,  —  "  almost 
everywhere  a  common  summer  resident," 
says  Dr.  Rives.  Another  unexpected  thing 
was  the  absence  of  the  white-eyed  vireo,  — 
also  a  "  common  summer  resident,"  —  for 
which  portions  of  the  surrounding  country 
seemed  to  be  admirably  suited.  I  should 
have  thought,  too,  that  Carolina  wrens  would 
have  been  here,  —  a  pair  or  two,  at  least. 
As  it  was,  Bewick  seemed  to  have  the  field 
mostly  to  himself,  although  a  house  wren 
was  singing  on  the  morning  of  May  1,  and  I 
have  already  mentioned  a  winter  wren  which 
was  seen  on  three  or  four  occasions.  He, 
however,  may  be  assumed  to  have  taken  his 
departure  northward  (or  southward)  very 
soon  after  my  final  sight  of  him.  Thrashers 
and  catbirds  are  wrens,  I  know,  —  though  I 
doubt  whether  they  know  it,  —  but  it  has 
not  yet  become  natural  for  me  to  speak  of 
them  under  that  designation.  The  mocking- 
bird, another  big  wren,  I  did  not  find  here, 
nor  had  I  supposed  myself  likely  to  do  so. 
Robins  were  common,  I  was  glad  to  see,  — 
one  pair  were  building  a  nest  in  the  vines  of 
the   hotel  veranda,  —  and  several  pairs   of 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     199 

song  sparrows  appeared  to  have  established 
themselves  along  the  banks  of  the  creek 
north  of  the  city.  I  saw  them  nowhere  else. 
One  need  not  go  much  beyond  Virginia  to 
find  these  omnipresent  New  Englanders  en- 
dowed with  all  the  attractions  of  rarity. 

Two  or  three  spotted  sandpipers  about  the 
stony  bed  of  the  creek  (a  dribbling  stream 
at  present,  though  within  a  month  or  so  it 
had  carried  away  bridges  and  set  houses 
adrift),  and  a  few  killdeer  plovers  there  and 
in  the  dry  fields  beyond,  were  the  only 
water  birds  seen  at  Pulaski.  One  of  the 
killdeers  gave  me  a  pretty  display  of  what 
I  took  to  be  his  antics  as  a  wooer.  I  was 
returning  over  the  grassy  hills,  where  on  the 
way  out  a  colored  boy's  dog  in  advance  of 
me  had  stirred  up  several  killdeers,  when 
suddenly  I  heard  a  strange  humming  noise, 
—  a  sort  of  double-tonguing,  I  called  it  to 
myself,  —  and  very  soon  recognized  in  it,  as 
I  thought,  something  of  the  killdeer's  vocal 
quality.  Sure  enough,  as  I  drew  near  the 
place  I  found  the  fellow  in  the  midst  of  a 
real  lover's  ecstasy ;  his  tail  straight  in  the 
air,  fully  spread  (the  value  of  the  bright 
cinnamon-colored  rump    and    tail    feathers 


200  VIRGINIA 

being  at  once  apparent),  and  he  spinning 
round  like  a  dervish,  almost  as  if  standing 
on  his  head  (it  was  a  wonder  how  he  did  it), 
all  the  while  emitting  that  quick  throbbing 
whistle.  His  mate  (that  was,  or  was  to  be) 
maintained  an  air  of  perfect  indifference,  — 
maidenly  reserve  it  might  have  been  called, 
for  aught  I  know,  by  a  spectator  possessed 
of  a  charitable  imagination,  —  as  female 
birds  generally  do  in  such  cases  ;  unless,  as 
often  happens,  they  repel  their  adorers  with 
beak  and  claw.  I  have  seen  courtships  that 
looked  more  ridiculous,  because  more  human- 
like, —  the  flicker's,  for  example,  —  but  never 
a  crazier  one,  or  one  less  describable.  In 
the  language  of  the  boards,  it  was  a  star 
performance. 

The  same  birds  amused  me  at  another 
time  by  their  senseless  conduct  in  the  stony 
margins  of  the  creek,  where  they  had  taken 
refuge  when  I  pressed  them  too  nearly. 
There  they  squatted  close  among  the  pebbles, 
as  other  plovers  do,  till  it  was  all  but  im- 
possible to  tell  feather  from  stone,  though  I 
had  watched  the  whole  proceeding ;  yet  while 
they  stood  thus  motionless  and  practically 
invisible  (no  cinnamon  color  in  sight,  now !), 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     201 

they  could  not  for  their  lives  keep  their 
tongues  still,  but  every  little  while  uttered 
loud,  characteristic  cries.  Their  behavior 
was  a  mixture  of  shrewdness  and  stupidity 
such  as  even  human  beings  would  have  been 
hard  put  to  it  to  surpass. 

Swallows  were  scarce,  almost  of  course. 
A  few  pairs  of  rough-wings  were  most  likely 
at  home  in  the  city  or  near  it,  and  more 
than  once  two  or  three  barn  swallows  were 
noticed  hawking  up  and  down  the  creek. 
There  was  small  prospect  of  their  settling 
hereabout,  from  any  indications  that  I  could 
discover.  Chimney  swifts,  happily,  were 
better  provided  for  ;  pretty  good  substitutes 
for  swallows,  —  so  good,  indeed,  that  people 
in  general  do  not  know  the  difference.  And 
even  an  ornithologist  may  be  glad  to  confess 
that  the  rarity  of  swallows  throughout  the 
Alleghanies  is  not  an  unmitigated  misfor- 
tune, if  it  be  connected  in  any  way  with  the 
immunity  of  the  same  region  from  the  plague 
of  mosquitoes.  It  would  be  difficult  to  ex- 
aggerate the  luxury  to  a  dreaming  naturalist, 
used  to  New  England  forests,  of  woods  in 
which  he  can  lounge  at  his  ease,  in  warm 
weather,   with   no   mosquito,  black   fly,   or 


202  VIBGINIA 

i^i^ge  —  "more   formidable    than    wolves," 
as  Thoreau  says  —  to  disturb  bis  meditations. 

By  far  the  most  characteristic  birds  of  the 
city  were  the  Bewick  wrens,  of  whose  town- 
loving  habits  I  have  already  spoken.  Con- 
stantly as  I  heard  them,  I  could  never  be- 
come accustomed  to  the  unwrennish  charac- 
ter of  their  music.  Again  and  again,  when 
the  bird  happened  to  be  a  little  way  off,  so 
that  only  the  concluding  measure  of  his  tune 
reached  me,  I  caught  myself  thinking  of  him 
as  a  song  sparrow.  If  I  had  been  in  Massa- 
chusetts, I  should  certainly  have  passed  on 
without  a  suspicion  of  the  truth. 

The  tall  old  rock  maples  in  the  hotel 
yard  —  decaying  at  the  tops  —  were  occu- 
pied by  a  colony  of  bronzed  grackles,  busy 
and  noisy  from  morning  till  night ;  excellent 
company,  as  they  stalked  about  the  lawn 
under  my  windows.  In  the  same  trees  a 
gorgeous  Baltimore  oriole  whistled  for  three 
or  four  days,  and  once  I  heard  there  a 
warblins:  vireo.  Neither  oriole  nor  vireo 
was  detected  elsewhere. 

Of  my  seventy-five  Pulaski  species  (April 
24-May  1),  eighteen  were  warblers  and 
fifteen  belonged  to  the  sparrow-finch  family. 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     203 

Six  of  the  seventy-five  names  were  added  in 
a  bunch  at  the  very  last  moment,  making 
me  think  with  lively  regret  how  much  more 
respectable  my  list  would  be  if  I  could  re- 
main a  week  or  two  longer.  With  my  trunk 
packed  and  everything  ready  for  my  de- 
parture, I  ran  out  once  more  to  the  border 
of  the  woods,  at  the  point  where  I  had  first 
entered  them  a  week  before  ;  and  there,  in 
the  trees  and  shrubbery  along  the  brookside 
path,  I  found  myself  all  at  once  surrounded 
by  a  most  interesting  bevy  of  fresh  arrivals, 
among  which  a  hurried  investigation  dis- 
closed a  scarlet  tanager,  a  humming-bird,  a 
house  wren,  a  chat,  a  wood  pewee,  and  a  Lou- 
isiana water  thrush.  The  pewee  was  calling 
and  the  house  wren  singing  (an  unspeakable 
convenience  when  a  man  has  but  ten  min- 
utes in  which  to  take  the  census  of  a  thicket 
full  of  birds),  and  the  water  thrush,  as  he 
flew  up  the  stream,  keeping  just  ahead  of  me 
among  the  rhododendrons,  stopped  every 
few  minutes  to  sing  his  prettiest,  as  if  he 
were  overjoyed  to  be  once  more  at  home 
after  a  winter's  absence.  I  did  not  wonder 
at  his  happiness.  The  spot  had  been  made 
for  him.  I  was  as  sorry  to  leave  it,  per- 
haps, as  he  was  glad  to  get  back  to  it. 


204  VIRGINIA 

And  while  I  followed  the  water  thrush, 
Bruce,  the  hotel  collie,  my  true  friend  of  a 
week,  whose  frequent  companionship  on  the 
mountain  road  and  elsewhere  has  been  too 
much  ignored,  was  having  a  livelier  chase  on 
his  own  account,  —  a  chase  which  I  found 
time  to  enjoy,  for  the  minute  that  it  lasted, 
in  spite  of  my  preoccupation.  He  had  stolen 
out  of  the  house  by  a  back  door,  and  fol- 
lowed me  to  the  woods  without  an  invita- 
tion, —  though  he  might  have  had  one,  since, 
being  non-ornithological  in  his  pursuits,  he 
was  never  in  the  way,  —  and  now  was  thrown 
into  a  sudden  frenzy  by  the  starting  up  be- 
fore him  of  a  rabbit.  Hearing  his  bark,  I 
turned  about  in  season  to  see  the  two  crea- 
tures going  at  lightning  speed  up  the  hill- 
side, the  rabbit's  "  cotton  tail "  (a  fine 
"mark  of  direction,"  as  naturalists  say) 
immediately  in  front  of  the  collie's  nose. 
Once  the  rabbit  ran  plump  into  a  log,  and 
for  an  instant  was  fairly  off  its  legs.  I  trem- 
bled for  its  safety ;  but  it  recovered  itself, 
and  in  a  moment  more  disappeared  from 
view.  Then  after  a  few  minutes  Bruce  came 
back,  panting.  It  had  been  a  great  morn- 
ing for  him  as  well  as  for  me,  —  a  morning 


A  NOOK  IN   THE  ALLEGHANIES     205 

to  haunt  his  after-dinner  dreams,  and  set  his 
legs  twitching,  for  a  week  to  come.  I  hope 
he  has  found  many  another  walking  guest 
and  "  fellow  woodlander "  since  then,  with 
whom  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  the  road  and 
the  excitement  of  the  chase. 

For  myself,  there  was  no  leisure  for  senti- 
ment. I  posted  back  to  the  inn  on  the  run, 
and  only  after  boarding  the  train  was  able 
to  make  a  minute  of  the  good  things  which 
the  rim  of  the  forest  had  shown  me. 

It  was  quite  as  well  so.  With  prudent 
forethought,  my  farewell  to  the  brook  path 
and  the  clearing  at  the  head  of  it  had  been 
taken  the  afternoon  before.  Here,  again. 
Fortune  smiled  upon  me.  After  three  days 
of  cloudiness  and  rain  the  sun  was  once 
more  shining,  and  I  took  my  usual  seat  on 
the  dry  grassy  knoll  among  the  rusty  boul- 
ders for  a  last  look  at  the  world  about  me, 
—  this  peaceful,  sequestered  nook  in  the 
Alleghanies,  into  which  by  so  happy  a 
chance  I  had  wandered  on  my  first  morning 
in  Virginia.  (How  well  I  remembered  the 
years  w^hen  Virginia  was  anything  but  an 
abode  of  quietness !)  The  arbutus  was  still 
in  plentiful  bloom,  and  the  dwarf  fleur-de- 


206  VIRGINIA 

lis  also.  On  my  way  up  the  slope  I  had 
stopped  to  admire  a  close  bunch  of  a  dozen 
blossoms.  The  same  soft  breeze  was  blow- 
ing, and  the  same  field  sparrow  chanting. 
Yes,  and  the  same  buzzard  floated  overhead 
and  dropped  the  same  moving  shadow  upon 
the  hillside.  Now  a  prairie  warbler  sang  or 
a  hyla  peeped,  but  mostly  the  air  was  silent, 
except  for  the  murmur  of  pine  needles  and 
the  faint  rustling  of  dry  oak  leaves.  And 
all  around  me  stood  the  hills,  the  nearest  of 
them,  to-day,  blue  with  haze. 

For  a  while  I  went  farther  up  the  slope, 
to  a  spot  where  I  could  look  through  a 
break  in  the  circle  and  out  upon  the  world. 
In  one  direction  were  green  fields  and  blos- 
soming apple-trees,  and  beyond  them,  of 
course,  a  wilderness  of  mountains.  But  I 
returned  soon  to  my  lower  seat.  It  was 
pleasanter  there,  where  I  was  quite  shut  in. 
The  ground  about  me  was  sprinkled  with 
low  azalea  bushes,  unnoticed  a  week  ago, 
now  brightening  with  clustered  pink  buds. 
"What  a  picture  the  hill  would  make  a  few 
days  hence,  and  again,  later  still,  when  the 
laurel  should  come  into  its  glory ! 

Parting  is   sweet  pain.      It  must  be  a 


A  NOOK  IN  THE  ALLEGHANIES     207 

mark  of  inferiority,  I  suppose,  to  be  fonder 
of  places  than  of  persons,  —  as  cats  are  in- 
ferior to  dogs.  But  then,  on  a  vacation  one 
goes  to  see  places.  And  right  or  wrong,  so 
it  was.  Kindly  as  the  hotel  people  had 
treated  me,  —  and  none  could  have  been 
kinder  or  more  efficient,  —  there  was  no- 
thing in  Pulaski  that  I  left  with  half  so 
much  regret,  or  have  remembered  half 
so  often,  as  this  hollow  among  the  hills, 
wherein  a  man  could  look  and  listen  and  be 
quiet,  with  no  thought  of  anything  new  or 
strange,  contented  for  the  time  with  the  old 
thoughts  and  the  old  dreams. 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE 


With  the  exception  of  a  tedious  delay  at 
East  Radford  it  was  a  very  enjoyable  fore- 
noon's ride  from  Pulaski  to  Natural  Bridge, 
through  a  country  everywhere  interesting, 
and  for  much  of  the  distance  gloriously  wild 
and  beautif  id.  Splendid  hillside  patches  of 
mingled  Judas-tree  and  flowering  dogwood 
—  one  of  a  bright  peach-bloom  color,  the 
other  royal  masses  of  pure  w  hite  —  bright- 
ened parts  of  the  way  south  of  Roanoke. 
There,  also,  hovering  over  a  grassy  field, 
were  the  first  bobolinks  of  the  season. 
From  Buchanan  northward  (new  ground  to 
me  by  daylight)  we  had  the  company  of 
mountains  and  the  James  River,  the  road 
following  the  windings  of  a  narrow  bank 
between  the  base  of  the  ridge  and  the  water. 
It  surprised  me  to  see  the  James  so  large 
and  full  at  such  a  distance  from  its  mouth. 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  209 

—  almost  as  wide,  I  thought,  as  the  Tennes- 
see at  Chattanooga.     Shortly  before  reach- 
ing  the   Natural   Bridge   station  the  train 
stopped  for  water,  and  on  getting  off  the 
steps  of  the  car  I  heard  a  Maryland  yel- 
low-throat singing  just  below  me  at  the  foot 
of  the  bank,  and  in  a  minute  more  a  king- 
fisher flew  across  the   stream,  —  two   addi- 
tional   names    for  my   vacation   catalogue. 
Then,  while  I  waited  at  the   station  for  a 
carriage  from  the  hotel,  —  two  miles  and  a 
half  away,  —  I  added  still  another.     In  the 
cloudy  sky,  between  me  and  the  sun,  was  a 
bird  which  in  that  blinding  light  might  have 
passed  for  a  buzzard,  only  that  a  swallow 
was  pursuing  it.     Seeing  that  sign,  I  raised 
my  glass  and  found  the  bird  a  fish-hawk. 
Trifles    these    things   were,   perhaps,    with 
mountains  and   a  river  in  sight ;    but  that 
depends  upon  one's  scale  of  values.     To  me 
it  is  not  so  clear  that  a  pile  of  earth  is  more 
an  object  of  wonder   than   a  swallow  that 
soars    above    it ;    and  for  better  or  worse, 
mountains  or  no  mountains,  I  kept  an  orni- 
thological eye  open. 

On  the  way  to  the   Bridge  (myself  the 
only  passenger)  the  colored  driver  of  the 


210  VIRGINIA 

wagon  picked  up  a  brother  of  his  own  race, 
who  happened  to  be  traveling  in  the  same 
direction  and  was  thankful  for  a  lift.  And 
a  real  amusement  and  pleasure  it  was  to 
listen  to  the  two  men's  palaver,  especially  to 
their  "  Mistering  "  of  each  other  at  every 
turn  of  the  dialogue.  I  never  saw  two 
schoolmasters,  even,  who  could  do  more  in 
half  an  hour  for  the  maintenance  and  in- 
crease of  their  mutual  dignity.  It  was 
"  Mr.  Brown  "  and  "  Mr.  Smith  "  with  every 
other  breath,  until  the  second  man  was  set 
down  at  his  own  gate.  From  their  appear- 
ance they  must  have  been  of  an  age  to  re- 
member the  days  "  before  the  war,"  and  I 
did  not  think  it  surprising  that  men  who 
had  once  been  pieces  of  property  should  be 
disposed  to  make  the  most  of  their  present 
condition  of  manhood,  and  so  to  give  and 
take,  between  themselves,  as  many  remind- 
ers and  tokens  of  it  as  the  brevity  of  their 
remaining  time  would  permit. 

Once  at  the  hotel,  installed  (literally)  in 
my  little  room,  the  only  window  of  which 
was  in  the  door,  —  opening  upon  the  piazza, 
for  all  the  world  as  a  prison  cell  opens  upon 
its  corridor,  —  once  domiciled,  I  say,  and  a 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  211 

bite  taken,  I  bought  a  season  ticket  of  ad- 
mission to  the  ''glen,"  and  went  down  the 
path  and  a  flight  of  steps,  amid  a  flock  of 
trilling  goldfinches  and  past  a  row  of  lordly 
arbor-vitae  trees,  to  the  brook,  and  up  the 
bank  of  the  brook  to  the  famous  bridge. 
Of  this,  considered  by  itself,  I  shall  attempt 
no  description.  The  material  facts  are,  in 
the  language  of  the  guidebook,  that  it  is  "  a 
huge  monolithic  arch,  215  feet  high,  100 
feet  wide,  and  90  feet  in  span,  crossing  the 
ravine  of  Cedar  Brook."  Magnificent  as  it 
is,  there  is,  for  me  at  least,  not  much  to  say 
concerning  it,  or  concerning  my  sensations 
in  the  presence  of  it.  Not  that  it  disap- 
pointed me.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  from 
the  first  more  imposing  than  I  had  expected 
to  find  it.  I  loved  to  look  at  it,  from  one 
side  and  from  the  other,  from  beneath  and 
from  above.  I  walked  under  it  and  over  it 
(on  the  public  highway,  for  it  is  a  bridge 
not  only  in  name,  but  in  fact)  many  times, 
by  sunlight  and  by  moonlight,  and  should 
be  glad  to  do  the  same  many  times  more  ; 
but  perhaps  my  taste  is  peculiar ;  at  all 
events,  such  "wonders  of  nature"  do  not 
charm  me  or  wear  with  me  like  a  beautiful 


212  VIRGINIA 

landscape.  It  was  so,  I  remember,  at  Au- 
sable  Chasm  ;  interesting,  grand,  impressive, 
but  a  place  in  which  I  had  no  passion  for 
staying,  no  sense  of  exquisite  delight  or 
solemnity.  In  Burlington,  just  across  Lake 
Champlain,  I  could  sit  by  the  hour,  even  on 
the  flat  roof  of  the  hotel,  and  gaze  upon  the 
blue  water  and  the  blue  Adirondacks  be- 
yond, —  the  sight  was  a  feast  of  beauty ; 
but  this  cleft  in  the  rocks,  —  well,  I  was 
glad  to  walk  through  it  and  to  shoot  the 
rapids ;  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  in 
disparagement  of  the  place,  but  it  put  me 
under  no  speU.  I  fear  it  would  be  the  same 
with  those  marvelous  Colorado  canons  and 
"gardens  of  the  gods."  A  wooded  moun- 
tain side,  a  green  valley,  running  water,  a 
lake  with  islands,  best  of  all,  perhaps  (for 
me,  that  is,  and  taking  the  years  together), 
a  New  England  hill  pasture,  with  boulders 
and  red  cedars,  berry  bushes  and  fern 
patches,  the  whole  bounded  by  stone  walls 
and  bordered  with  gray  birches  and  pitch 
pines,  —  for  sights  to  live  with,  let  me  have 
these  and  things  like  them  in  preference  to 
any  of  nature's  more  freakish  work,  which 
appeals  rather  to  curiosity  than  to  the  ima- 
gination and  the  affections. 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  213 

Having  gone  under  the  arch  (and  looked 
in  vain  for  Washington's  initials  on  the 
wall),  the  visitor  to  Natural  Bridge  finds 
himself  following  up  the  brook  —  a  lively 
stream  —  between  lofty  precipitous  cliffs, 
that  turn  to  steep  wooded  slopes  as  he  pro- 
ceeds. If  he  is  like  me,  he  pursues  the  path 
to  the  end,  stopping  here  and  there,  —  at 
the  saltpetre  cave,  at  Hemlock  Island,  and 
at  Lost  River,  if  nowhere  else,  —  till  he 
comes  to  the  end  at  the  falls,  a  distance  of  a 
mile,  more  or  less.  That  is  my  way  always. 
I  must  go  straight  through  the  place  once ; 
then,  the  edge  of  my  curiosity  dulled,  I  am 
in  a  condition  to  see  and  enjoy. 

The  ravine  is  a  botanist's  paradise :  that, 
I  should  say,  must  be  the  first  thought  of 
every  appreciative  tourist.  The  elevation 
(fifteen  hundred  feet),  the  latitude,  and  the 
limestone  rocks  work  together  to  that  end. 
In  a  stay  of  a  week  I  could  see,  of  course, 
but  one  set  of  flowers ;  and  in  my  preoc- 
cupation I  passed  many  herbs  and  shrubs, 
mostly  out  of  bloom,  the  names  of  which 
I  neither  knew  nor  attempted  to  discover. 
One  of  the  things  that  struck  my  admira- 
tion on  the  instant  was  the  beauty  of  the 


214  VIRGINIA 

columbine  as  here  displayed ;  a  favorite  with 
me  always,  for  more  reasons  than  one,  but 
never  beheld  in  all  its  loveliness  till  now. 
If  the  election  could  be  held  here,  and  on 
the  1st  of  May,  there  would  be  no  great 
difficulty  in  securing  a  unanimous  vote  for 
Aquilegia  Canadensis  as  the  "  national 
flower."  It  was  in  its  glory  at  the  time  of 
my  earlier  visits,  brightening  the  face  of  the 
cliffs,  not  in  a  mass,  but  in  scattered  sprays, 
as  high  as  the  eyesight  could  follow  it ; 
looking,  even  under  the  opera-glass,  as  if  it 
grew  out  of  the  rock  itself.  With  it  were 
sedges,  ferns,  and  much  of  a  tufted  white 
flower,  which  at  first  I  made  no  question 
must  be  the  common  early  saxifrage.  When 
I  came  upon  it  within  reach,  however,  I  saw 
at  once  that  it  was  a  plant  of  quite  another 
sort,  some  member  of  the  troublesome  mus- 
tard family,  —  Draha  ramosissima^  as  after- 
ward turned  out.  It  was  wonderful  how 
olosely  it  simulated  the  appearance  of  Saxi- 
fraga  Vir^giniensis^  though  the  illusion  was 
helped,  no  doubt,  by  the  habit  I  am  in  of 
seeing  columbine  and  saxifrage  together. 

The  ground  in  many  places  was  almost  a 
mat  of  violets,  three  kinds  of  which  were  in 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  215 

special  profusion  :  the  tall,  fragrant  white 
Canadensis^  the  long-spurred  rostrata^  — 
of  a  very  pale  blue,  with  darker  streaks  and 
a  darker  centre  (like  our  blue  meadow  vio- 
lets in  that  respect),  —  and  the  common 
palmata.  The  long-spurred  violet  was  new 
to  me,  and  both  for  that  reason  and  for  it- 
self peculiarly  attractive.  As  I  passed  up 
the  glen  on  the  right  of  the  brook  beyond 
Hemlock  Island,  so  called,  carpeted  with 
partridge-berry  vines  bearing  a  wondrous 
crop  ("  See  the  berries !  "  my  notebook 
says),  I  began  to  find  here  and  there  the 
large  trillium  (71  grandifloruni)^  some  of 
the  blossoms  clear  white,  others  of  a  delicate 
rosy  tint.  The  rosy  ones  had  been  open 
longer  than  the  others,  it  appeared ;  for  the 
flowers  blush  with  age,  —  a  very  modest  and 
graceful  habit.  Like  the  spurred  violet,  the 
trillium  is  a  plant  also  of  northern  New 
England,  but  happily  for  my  present  enjoy- 
ment I  had  never  seen  it  there.  And  the 
same  is  to  be  said  of  the  large  yellow  bell- 
wort,  which  was  here  the  trillium's  neighbor, 
and  looked  only  a  little  less  distinguished 
than  the  trillium  itself. 

If  I  were  to  name  aU  the  plants  I  saw,  or 


216  VIRGINIA 

even  all  that  attracted  my  particular  notice, 
tlie  non-botanical  reader  would  quit  me  for 
a  tiresome  chronicler.  Hepatica  and  blood- 
root  had  dropped  their  last  petals ;  but 
anemone  and  rue  anemone  were  still  in 
bloom,  with  cranesbill,  spring  beauty,  rag- 
wort, mitrewort,  robin's  plantain,  Jack-in- 
the-pulpit,  wild  ginger  (two  thick  handsome 
leaves  hiding  a  dark-purplish  three-horned 
urn  of  an  occult  and  almost  sinister  aspect), 
two  or  more  showy  chickweeds,  two  kinds  of 
white  stone-crop  (^Sedum  ternatum  and  S. 
Nevii,  the  latter  a  novelty),  mandrake 
(sheltering  its  precious  round  bud  under  an 
umbrella,  though  to-day  it  neither  rained 
nor  shone),  pepper-root,  gill-over-the-ground 
(where  did  it  come  from,  I  wondered), 
Dutchman's  breeches  (the  leaves  only). 
Orchis  sjoectahilis  (which  I  did  not  know 
till  after  a  few  days  it  blossomed),  and 
many  more.  A  new  shrub  —  almost  a  tree  — 
was  the  bladder-nut,  with  drooping  clusters 
of  small  whitish  flowers,  like  bunches  of 
currant  blossoms  in  their  manner  of  growth 
and  general  appearance ;  especially  dear  to 
humble-bees,  which  would  not  be  done  with 
a  branch  even  while  I  carried  it  in  my  hand. 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  217 

In  one  place,  as  I  stooped  to  examine  a 
boulder  covered  thickly  with  the  tiny  walk- 
ing fern,  of  which  the  ravine  contains  a 
great  abundance,  —  faded,  ill  conditioned, 
and  homely,  but  curious,  and,  better  still,  a 
stranger,  —  I  found  the  ground  littered  with 
bright  yellowish  magnolia  petals ;  and  if  I 
looked  into  the  sky  for  a  passing  bird,  it 
was  almost  as  likely  as  not  that  I  should 
find  myself  looking  through  the  branches  of 
a  soaring  tulip-tree,  —  a  piece  of  magnifi- 
cence that  is  one  of  the  most  constant  of  my 
Alleghanian  admirations.  All  the  upper 
part  of  the  glen  is  pervaded  by  a  dull  rum- 
bling or  moaning  sound,  —  the  voice  of  Lost 
River,  out  of  which  the  tourist  is  supposed 
to  have  drunk  at  the  only  point  where  it 
shows  itself  (and  there  only  to  those  who 
look  for  it),  a  quarter  of  a  mile  back.  An- 
other all-pervasive  thing  is  the  wholesome 
fragrance  of  arbor-vitae.  It  is  fitting,  surely, 
that  the  tree  of  life  should  be  growing  in 
this  floral  paradise.  There  are  few  places, 
I  imagine,  where  it  flourishes  better. 

On  my  way  back  toward  the  bridge  I  dis- 
covered, as  was  to  be  expected,  many  things 
that  had  been  overlooked  on  my  way  out ; 


218  VIRGINIA 

and  every  successive  visit  was  similarly  re- 
warded. A  pleasing  sight  at  the  bridge 
itself  was  the  continual  fluttering  of  butter- 
flies —  Turnus  and  his  smaller  and  paler 
brother  Ajax,  especially  —  against  the  face 
of  the  cliffs,  sipping  from  the  deep  honey- 
jars  of  the  columbines.  Here,  too,  I  often 
stopped  awhile  to  enjoy  the  doings  of  sev- 
eral pairs  of  rough-winged  swallows  that  had 
their  nests  in  a  row  of  holes  in  the  rock, 
between  two  of  the  strata.  Most  romantic 
homes  they  looked,  under  the  overhanging 
ledge,  —  a  narrow  platform  below,  ferns  and 
sedges  nodding  overhead,  with  tall  arbor- 
vitae  trees  a  little  higher  on  the  cliff,  and 
water  dropping  continually  before  the  doors. 
One  of  the  nests,  I  noticed,  had  directly  in 
front  of  it  a  patch  of  low  green  moss,  the 
neatest  of  door-mats.  The  holes  were  only 
a  few  feet  above  the  level  of  the  stream, 
but  there  was  no  approach  to  them  without 
wading ;  for  which  reason,  perhaps,  the 
owners  paid  little  attention  to  me,  even 
when  I  got  as  near  them  as  I  could.  In 
and  out  they  went,  quite  at  their  ease,  rest- 
ing now  and  then  upon  a  jutting  shelf,  or 
perching  in  the  branches  of  some  tree  near 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  219 

at  hand.  Once  three  of  them  sat  side  by 
side  before  one  of  the  openings,  which  after 
all  may  have  admitted  to  some  sizable  cav- 
ern wherein  different  pairs  were  living  to- 
gether. They  are  the  least  beautiful  of 
swallows,  but  for  this  time,  at  all  events, 
they  had  displayed  a  remarkably  pretty  taste 
in  the  choice  of  a  nesting-site. 

The  birds  of  Cedar  Creek,  however,  were 
not  the  rough-wings,  but  the  Louisiana  water 
thrushes.  On  my  first  jaunt  through  the 
ravine  (May  1)  I  counted  seven  of  them, 
here  one  and  there  another,  the  greater  part 
in  free  song  ;  and  while  I  never  found  so 
many  again  at  any  one  visit,  I  was  never 
there  without  seeing  and  hearing  at  least 
two  or  three.  It  was  exactly  such  a  spot  as 
the  water  thrush  loves,  —  a  quick  stream, 
with  boulders  and  abundant  vegetation.  The 
song,  I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  confess,  as 
I  have  confessed  before,  is  not  to  me  all  that 
it  appears  to  be  to  other  listeners ;  probably 
not  all  that  a  longer  acquaintance  and  a 
more  intimate  association  would  make  it.  It 
is  loud  and  ringing,  — for  a  warbler's  song, 
I  mean  ;  in  that  respect  well  adapted  to  the 
bird's   ordinary   surroundings,  being  easily 


220  VIRGINIA 

heard  above  the  noise  of  a  pretty  lively 
brook.  It  is  heard  the  better,  too,  because 
of  its  remarkably  disconnected,  staccato  char- 
acter. Every  note  is  by  itself.  Though  the 
bird  haunts  the  vicinity  of  running  water, 
there  is  no  trace  of  fluidity  in  its  utterance. 
No  bird-song  could  be  less  flowing.  It 
neither  gurgles  nor  runs  smoothly,  note 
merging  into  note.  •  It  would  be  too  much 
to  call  it  declamatory,  perhaps,  but  it  goes 
some  way  in  that  direction.  At  least  we 
may  call  it  emphatic.  At  different  times  I 
wrote  it  down  in  different  words,  none  of 
which  could  be  expected  to  do  more  than 
assist,  first  the  writer's  memory,  and  then 
the  reader's  imagination,  to  recall  and  divine 
the  rhythm  and  general  form  of  the  melody. 
For  that  —  I  speak  for  myself  —  a  verbal 
transcription,  imperfect  as  it  must  be,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  is  likely  to  prove  more 
intelligible,  and  therefore  more  useful,  than 
any  attempt  to  reproduce  the  music  itself 
by  a  resort  to  musical  notation.  As  most 
frequently  heard  here,  the  song  consisted  of 
eight  notes,  like  "  Come  —  come  —  come  — 
come,  —  you  're  a  beauty,"  delivered  rather 
slowly.     "  Lazily "  was   the  word  I   some- 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  221 

times  employed,  but  "  slowly  "  is  perhaps 
better,  though  it  is  true  that  the  song  is  cool 
and,  so  to  speak,  very  unpassionate.  Dynam- 
ically I  marked  it  *<3^>^,  while  the  vari- 
ations in    pitch   may  be  indicated  roughly 

thus  : -.    Two  of  the  lower  notes, 

the  fifth  and  sixth,  were  shorter  than  the 
others,  —  half  as  long,  if  my  ear  and  memory 
are  to  be  trusted.  Sometimes  a  bird  would 
break  out  into  a  bit  of  flourish  at  the  end, 
but  to  my  thinking  such  improvised  caden- 
zas, as  they  had  every  appearance  of  being, 
only  detracted  from  the  simplicity  of  the 
strain  without  adding  anything  appreciable 
to  its  beauty  or  its  effectiveness. 

This  song,  which  the  reader  will  perhaps 
blame  me  for  trying  thus  to  analyze  (I  shall 
not  blame  him'),  very  soon  grew  to  be  almost 
a  part  of  the  glen  ;  so  that  I  never  recall  the 
brook  and  the  cliffs  without  seeming  to  hear 
it  rising  clear  and  sweet  above  the  brawling 
of  the  current ;  and  when  I  hear  it,  I  can 
see  the  birds  flitting  up  or  down  the  creek, 
just  in  advance  of  me,  with  sharp  chips  of 
alarm  or  displeasure ;  now  balancing  un- 
easily on  a  boulder  in  mid-stream  (a  posterior 
bodily  fluctuation,  half  graceful,  half  comical, 


222  VIRGINIA 

slanderously  spoken  of  as  teetering)  and 
singing  a  measure  or  two,  now  taking  to  an 
overhanging  branch,  sometimes  at  a  consid- 
erable height,  for  the  same  tuneful  purpose. 
One  acrobatic  fellow,  I  remember,  walked 
for  some  distance  along  the  seemingly  per- 
pendicular face  of  the  cliff,  slipping  now  and 
then  on  the  wet  surface  and  having  to  "  wing 
it "  for  a  space,  yet  still  pausing  at  short 
intervals  to  let  out  a  song.  In  truth,  the 
happy  creatures  were  just  then  brimming 
over  with  music  ;  and  if  I  seem  to  praise 
their  efforts  but  grudgingly,  it  is  to  be  said, 
on  the  other  hand,  in  justice  to  the  song  and 
to  myself,  that  my  appreciation  of  it  grew  as 
the  days  passed.  Whatever  else  might  be 
true  of  it,  it  was  the  voice  of  the  place. 

Of  birds  beside  the  rough-wings  and  the 
water  thrushes  there  were  surprisingly  few 
in  the  glen,  though,  to  be  sure,  there  may 
well  have  been  many  more  than  I  found 
trace  of.  The  splashing  of  a  mountain  brook 
is  very  pleasing  music,  —  more  pleasing,  in 
itself  considered,  than  the  great  majority  of 
bird-songs,  perhaps,  —  but  an  ornithological 
hobbyist  may  easily  have  too  much  of  it.  I 
call  to  mind  how  increasingly  vexatious,  and 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  223 

at  last  all  but  intolerable,  a  turbulent  Ver- 
mont stream  (a  branch  of  Wait's  River) 
became  to  me,  some  years  ago,  as  it  followed 
my  road  persistently  mile  after  mile  in  the 
course  of  a  May  vacation.  One  gets  on  the 
track  of  the  smaller  birds  through  hearing 
their  faint  calls  in  the  bushes  and  treetops ; 
and  how  was  I  to  catch  such  indispensable 
signals  with  this  everlasting  uproar  in  my 
ears  ?  So  it  was  here  in  Cedar  Creek  ravine ; 
it  would  have  to  be  a  pretty  loud  voice  to  be 
heard  above  the  din  of  the  hurrying  water. 
And  the  birds,  on  their  side,  had  something 
of  the  same  difficulty  ;  or  so  I  judged  from 
the  unconventional  behavior  of  a  blue  yellow- 
backed  warbler  that  flitted  through  the 
hanging  branches  of  a  tree  within  a  few 
inches  of  my  hat,  having  plainly  no  suspicion 
of  a  human  being's  proximity.  The  tufted 
titmouse  could  be  heard,  of  course.  He 
would  make  a  first-rate  auctioneer,  it  seemed 
to  me,  with  his  penetrating,  indefatigable 
voice  and  his  genius  for  repetition.  Now 
and  then,  too,  I  caught  the  sharp,  sermoniz- 
ing tones  of  a  red-eyed  vireo.  Once  an  oven- 
bird  near  me  mounted  a  tree  hastily,  branch 
by  branch,  and  threw  himself  from  the  top 


224  VIRGINIA 

for  a  burst  of  his  afternoon  medley ;  and  at 
the  bridge  a  phoebe  sat  calling.  These,  with 
a  pair  of  cardinal  grosbeaks,  were  all  the 
birds  I  saw  in  the  glen  during  my  first  day's 
visit. 

In  fact,  I  had  the  place  pretty  nearly  to 
myself,  not  only  on  this  first  day,  but  for  the 
entire  week.  Once  in  a  great  while  a  human 
visitor  was  encountered,  but  for  the  most 
part  I  went  up  and  down  the  path  with  no 
disturbance  to  my  meditations.  HapjDily  for 
me,  the  Bridge  was  now  in  its  dull  season. 
Many  tourists  had  been  here.  The  trunks 
of  the  older  trees,  the  beeches  especially, 
were  scarred  thickly  with  inglorious  initials, 
some  of  them  so  far  from  the  ground  that  the 
authors  of  them  must  have  stood  on  one 
another's  shoulders  in  their  determination  to 
get  above  the  crowd.  (In  work  of  this  kind 
an  inch  or  two  makes  all  the  difference  be- 
tween renown  and  obscurity.)  The  fact 
was  emblematic,  I  thought.  So  do  men  hoist 
and  boost  themselves  into  fame,  not  only 
in  Cedar  Creek  ravine,  but  in  the  "  great 
world,"  as  we  call  it,  outside.  Who  so  lowly- 
minded  as  not  to  believe  that  he  could  make 
a  name  for  himself  if  only  he  had  a  step- 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  225 

ladder  ?  At  the  arch,  likewise,  such  auto- 
graphers  had  been  busy  ever  since  ^Yash- 
ington's  day.  I  peeped  into  a  crevice  to 
obtain  a  closer  view  of  a  tiny  fern,  and  there 
before  me  was  a  penciled  name,  invisible 
till  I  came  thus  near  to  it.  One  of  the  meek 
the  writer  must  have  been  ;  a  lead  pencil, 
and  so  fine  a  hand!  Dumphy  of  New 
Orleans.  Why  should  I  not  second  his 
modest  bid  for  immortality  ?  A  good  name 
is  rather  to  be  chosen  than  great  riches.  By 
all  means  let  Dumphy  of  New  Orleans  be 
remembered. 

As  for  Washington's  "  G.  W.,"  the  let- 
ters are  said  to  be  still  decipherable  by  those 
who  know  exactly  where  to  look  and  exactly 
what  to  look  for ;  but  I  can  testify  to  no- 
thing   of    myself.     I   was   told   where   the 
initials  were;  one  was  much   plainer   than 
the  other,  my  informant  said,  —which  seemed 
to   imply  that   one   of   them,  at  least,  was 
more  or  less  a  matter  of  faith  ;  he  would  go 
down  with  me  some  day  and  point  them  out ; 
but  the  hour  convenient  to  both  of  us  never 
came,  and  so,  although  I  almost  always  spent 
a  minute  or  two  in  the  search  as  I  passed 
under  the  arch,  I  never   detected  them   or 


226  VIRGINIA 

anything  that  I  could  even  imagine  to  stand 
for  them.  I  have  had  experience  enough  of 
such  things,  however,  to  be  aware  that  my 
failure  proves  nothing  as  against  the  wit- 
ness of  other  men's  eyesight.  Certainly  I 
know  of  no  ground  for  doubting  that  Wash- 
ington cut  his  initials  on  the  cliff  ;  and  if  he 
did,  it  seems  reasonable  to  believe  that  tra- 
dition would  have  preserved  a  knowledge  of 
the  place,  and  so  have  made  it  possible  to 
find  them  now  in  all  their  inevitable  indis- 
tinctness after  so  long  an  exposure  to  the 
wear  of  the  elements.  Neither  do  I  esteem 
it  anything  but  a  natural  and  worthy  curi- 
osity for  the  visitor  to  wish  to  see  them ;  and 
I  may  add  my  hope  that  all  young  men  who 
are  destined  to  achieve  Washington's  mea- 
sure of  distinction  will  cut  their  names  large 
and  deep  in  every  such  wall,  for  the  benefit 
of  future  generations.  As  for  the  rest  of 
us,  if  we  must  scratch  our  names  in  stone  or 
carve  them  on  the  bark  of  trees,  let  us  seek 
some  sequestered  nook,  where  the  sight  of 
our  doings  will  neither  be  an  offense  to 
others  nor  make  of  ourselves  a  laughing- 
stock. 

I  have  said  that  I  discovered  Dumphj  of 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  227 

New  Orleans  while  leaning  against  the  cliff 
to  peer  into  a  crevice  in  search  of  a  diminu- 
tive fern.  This  fern  was  of  much  interest 
to  me,  being  nothing  less  than  the  wall-rue 
spleenwort  {As2)lenium  Riita-muraria)^  for 
which  I  had  looked  without  success  in  years 
past  on  the  limestone  cliffs  of  northern  Ver- 
mont, at  Willoughby  and  elsewhere.  The 
fronds,  stipe  and  all,  last-year  plants  in  full 
fruit,  were  less  than  three  inches  in  length. 
Another  fern,  one  size  larger,  but  equally 
new  and  interesting,  was  the  purple-stemmed 
cliff-brake  (^Pellcea  atropurpurea)^  which 
also  had  eluded  my  search  in  its  New  Eng- 
land habitat.  Both  these  rarities  (plants 
which  will  grow  only  on  limestone  cannot 
easily  be  degraded  into  commonness)  I  could 
have  gathered  here  in  moderate  numbers, 
but  of  course  collecting  is  not  permitted  ;  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  it  cannot  be,  in  a  spot 
so  frequented  by  curiosity-seekers.  It  was 
pleasure  enough  for  me,  at  any  rate,  to  see 
them. 

Along:  the  bottom  of  the  ravine  I  had  re- 
marked  a  profusion  of  a  strikingly  beautiful 
larger  fern  (but  still  "  smallish,"  as  my 
pencil  says),  with   showy  red  stems   and  a 


228  VIRGINIA 

most  graceful  curving  or  drooping  Habit. 
This  I  could  not  make  out  for  a  time  ;  but 
it  proved  to  be,  as  I  soon  began  to  suspect, 
Cystopteris  hulbifera,  to  my  thinking  one 
of  the  loveliest  of  all  things  that  grow.  I 
had  seen  it  abundant  at  Willoughby,  Ver- 
mont, and  at  Owl's  Head,  Canada,  ten  years 
before  ;  but  either  my  memory  was  playing 
me  a  trick,  or  there  was  here  a  very  consid- 
erable diminution  in  the  length  of  the  fronds, 
accompanied  by  a  decided  heightening  in  the 
color  of  the  stalk  and  rhachis.  Before  long, 
however,  I  found  a  specimen  already  begin- 
ning to  show  its  bulblets,  and  these,  with  a 
study  of  Dr.  Eaton's  description,  left  me  in 
no  doubt  as  to  the  plant's  identity. 

What  other  ferns  may  have  been  growing 
in  the  ravine  I  cannot  now  pretend  to  say. 
I  remember  the  Christmas  fern,  a  goodly 
supply  of  the  dainty  little  Asplenium  tricho- 
manes^  and  tufts  of  what  I  took  with  rea- 
sonable certainty  for  Cystopteris  fragilis 
in  its  early  spring  stage,  than  which  few 
things  can  be  more  graceful.  On  the  upper 
edge  of  the  ravine,  when  I  left  the  place 
one  day  by  following  a  maze  of  zigzag  cattle- 
paths  up  the  steep  slope,  and  found  myself, 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  229 

to  my  surprise,  directly  in  the  rear  of  the 
hotel,  I  came  upon  a  dense  patch  of  a  small- 
ish, very  narrow,  dark-stemmed  fern,  new  to 
my  eyes,  —  the  hairy  lip-fern,  so  called 
(^Cheilanthes  vestitci).  These  fronds,  too, 
like  those  of  the  cliff-brake  and  the  wall-rue 
spleenwort,  were  of  last  year's  growth, 
thickly  covered  on  the  back  with  brown 
"  fruit-dots,"  and  altogether  having  much 
the  appearance  of  dry  herbarium  specimens  ; 
but  they  were  good  to  look  at,  nevertheless. 
Here,  as  in  the  case  of  PellcBa  atropurjyiirea^ 
it  was  a  question  not  only  of  a  new  species, 
but  of  a  new  genus. 

From  my  account  of  the  scarcity  of  birds 
in  Cedar  Creek  ravine  the  reader  will  have 
already  inferred,  perhaps,  that  I  did  not 
spend  my  days  there,  great  as  were  its 
botanical  attractions.  My  last  morning's 
experience  at  Pulaski,  the  evidence  there 
seen  that  the  vernal  migration  was  at  full 
tide,  or  near  it,  had  brought  on  a  pretty 
acute  attack  of  ornithological  fever,  —  a 
spring  disease  which  I  am  happy  to  believe 
has  become  almost  an  epidemic  in  some 
parts  of  the  United  States  within  recent 
years,  —  and  not  even  the  sight  of  new  ferns 


230  VIRGINIA 

and  new  flowers  could  allay  its  symptoms.  I 
had  counted  upon  finding  a  similar  state  o£ 
things  here,  —  all  the  woods  astir  with  wings. 
Instead  of  that,  I  found  the  fields  alive  with 
chipping  sparrows,  the  air  full  of  chimney 
swifts,  the  shade  trees  in  front  of  the  hotel 
vocal  with  goldfinch  notes,  and,  compara- 
tively speaking,  nothing  else.  By  the  end 
of  the  second  day  I  was  fast  becoming  dis- 
consolate. "  No  birds  here,"  I  wrote  in  my 
journal.  "  I  have  tried  woods  of  all  sorts. 
A  very  few  parula  warblers,  two  or  three 
red-eyed  vireos,  one  yellow-throated  vireo, 
seven  Louisiana  water  thrushes  in  the  glen, 
one  prairie  warbler,  and  a  few  oven-birds ! 
No  Bewick  wrens.  Two  purple  finches  and 
one  or  two  phoebes  have  been  the  only  addi- 
ctions to  my  Virginia  list."  A  pitiful  tale. 
Vacations  are  short  and  precious,  and  it 
goes  hard  with  us  to  see  them  running  to 
waste. 

The  next  evening  (May  3)  it  was  the 
same  story  continued.  "  It  is  marvelous,  the 
difference  between  this  beautiful  place,  diver- 
sified with  fields  and  woods,  —  hard  wood, 
cedar,  pine,  —  it  is  marvelous,  the  difference 
between  this  heavenly  spot  and  Pulaski  in 


AT  NATURAL   BRIDGE  231 

the  matter  of  birds.  There  I  registered 
six  new  arrivals  in  half  an  hour  Wednesday- 
morning  ;  here  I  have  made  but  six  additions 
to  my  list  in  two  full  days.  There  is  scarcely 
a  sign  of  warbler  migration.  Was  it  that  in 
Pulaski  the  woods  were  comparatively  small, 
and  the  birds  had  to  congregate  in  them  ? 
Or  does  Pulaski  lie  in  a  route  of  migration  ?  " 
Wild  surmises,  both  of  them  ;  but  wisdom 
is  not  to  be  looked  for  in  a  fever  patient. 

"  Six  additions  in  two  full  days,"  I  wrote  ; 
but  the  second  day  was  not  yet  full.  As 
evening:  came  on  I  went  out  to  stand  awhile 
upon  the  bridge  ;  and  while  I  listened  to  the 
brawling:  of  the  creek  and  admired  the 
beautiful  scene  below  me,  the  moon  shining 
straight  down  upon  it,  a  nighthawk  called 
from  the  sky,  and  afterward  —  not  from  the 
sky  —  a  whippoorwill.  Here,  then,  were  two 
more  names  for  my  catalogue  ;  but  even  so, 
—  six  or  eight,  —  it  was  a  beggarly  rate  of 
increase  in  such  a  favored  spot  and  in  the 
very  nick  of  the  season.  The  "  six  addi- 
tions," it  may  ease  the  reader's  curiosity  to 
know,  were  the  Carolina  wren,  the  summer 
tanager,  the  purple  finch,  the  indigo  bunting, 
the  blue-gray  gnatcatcher,  and  the  phoebe. 


232  VIRGINIA 

One  compensation  there  was  for  the  orni- 
thological barrenness  of  these  first  few  days : 
I  had  the  more  leisure  for  botany.  And 
the  hours  were  not  thrown  away,  although 
at  the  time  I  was  almost  ready  to  think  they 
were,  with  so  many  of  them  devoted  to  ran- 
sacking the  Manual ;  for  a  man  who  does 
not  collect  specimens  to  carry  home  with 
him  must,  as  it  were,  drive  his  field  work 
and  his  closet  work  abreast ;  he  must  study 
out  his  findings  as  he  goes  along.  On  the 
evening  of  the  second  day,  for  example,  I 
wrote  in  my  journal  thus,  —  the  final  entry 
under  that  date,  as  the  reader  may  guess : 
"  In  bed.  Strange  how  we  flatter  ourselves 
with  a  knowledge  of  names.  I  have  spent 
much  time  to-day  looking  up  the  names  of 
flowers  and  ferns,  and  somehow  feel  as  if  I 
had  learned  something  in  so  doing.  Really, 
however,  I  have  learned  only  that  some  one 
else  has  seen  the  things  before  me,  and 
called  them  so  and  so.  At  best  that  is 
nearly  all  I  have  learned."  But  after  set- 
ting down  the  results  of  my  investigations, 
especially  of  those  having  to  do  with  the 
pretty  draba  and  the  bulbiferous  fern,  I 
concluded  in  a  less  positive  strain :  "  Well, 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  233 

the  hunt  for  names  does  quicken  observa- 
tion and  help  to  rehite  and  classify  things." 
That  was  a  qualification  well  put  in.  The 
whole  truth  was  never  written  on  one  side 
of  the  leaf.  If  all  our  botany  were  Latin 
names,  as  Emerson  says,  we  should  have 
little  to  boast  of;  yet  even  that  would  be 
one  degree  better  than  nothing,  as  Emerson 
himself  felt  when  he  visited  a  museum  and 
saw  the  cases  of  shells.  "  I  was  hungry  for 
names,"  he  remarks  ;  and  so  have  all  men  of 
intelligence  been  since  the  day  of  the  first 
systematic,  name-conferring  naturalist,  the 
man  who  dwelt  in  Eden.  Let  us  be  thank- 
ful for  manuals,  I  say,  that  offer  on  easy 
terms  a  speaking  acquaintance,  if  nothing 
more,  with  the  world  of  beauty  about  us. 
Things  take  their  value  from  comparison, 
and  my  own  ignorance  was  but  a  little  while 
ago  so  absolute  that  now  I  am  proud  to 
know  so  much  as  a  name. 

Meanwhile,  to  come  back  to  Natural 
Bridge,  I  had  found  the  country  of  a  most 
engaging  sort.  In  truth,  while  the  bridge 
itself  is  the  "  feature  "  of  the  place,  as  we 
speak  in  these  days,  it  is  by  no  means  its 
only,  or,  as  I  should  say,  its  principal  attrac- 


234  VIRGINIA 

tion,  so  far,  at  least,  as  a  leisurely  visit  is 
concerned.  A  man  may  see  it  and  go,  —  as 
most  tourists  do;  but  if  lie  stays,  lie  will 
find  tliat  the  region  round  about  not  only 
has  charms  of  its  own,  but  is  one  of  the 
prettiest  he  has  ever  set  eyes  on  ;  and  that, 
I  should  think,  though  he  be  neither  a  bot- 
anist, nor  an  ornithologist,  nor  any  other 
kind  of  natural  historian.  For  myself,  at 
all  events,  I  had  already  come  to  that  con- 
clusion, notwithstanding  I  had  yet  to  see 
some  of  the  most  beautiful  parts  of  the 
country,  and  was,  besides,  far  too  much  con- 
cerned about  the  birds  (the  absentees  in 
particular)  and  the  flowers  to  have  quieted 
down  to  any  adequate  appreciation  of  the 
general  landscape.  I  have  never  yet  learned 
to  see  a  prospect  on  the  first  day,  or  while 
in  the  eager  expectation  of  new  things,  al- 
though, like  every  one  else,  I  can  exclaim 
with  a  measure  of  shallow  sincerity,  "  Beau- 
tiful !  beautiful !  "  even  at  the  first  moment. 
As  my  mood  now  was,  at  any  rate,  fine 
scenery  did  not  satisfy  me ;  and  on  the 
morning  of  May  4,  after  two  days  and  a 
half  of  botanical  surfeit  and  ornithological 
starvation,  I  packed  my  trunk  preparatory 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  235 

to  going  elsewhere.  First,  however,  I  would 
try  the  woods  once  more,  if  perchance  some- 
thing might  have  happened  overnight.  Oth- 
erwise, so  I  informed  the  landlord,  I  would 
return  in  season  for  an  early  luncheon,  and 
should  expect  to  be  driven  to  the  station  fbr 
the  noon  train  northward. 

I  went  to  a  promising-looking  hill  covered 
with  hard-wood  forest,  a  spot  already  visited 
more  than  once,  —  Buck  Hill  I  heard  it 
called  afterward,  —  and  was  no  sooner  well 
in  the  woods  than  it  became  evident  that 
something  had  happened.  The  treetops  were 
swarming  with  birds,  and  I  had  my  hands 
full  with  trying  to  see  and  name  them.  Old 
trees  are  grand  creations,  —  among  the  no- 
blest works  of  God,  I  often  think ;  but  for 
a  bird-gazer  they  have  one  disheartening 
drawback,  especially  when,  as  now,  the 
birds  not  only  take  to  the  topmost  boughs 
(even  the  hummer  and  the  magnolia  war- 
bler, so  my  notes  say,  went  with  the  multi- 
tude to  do  evil),  but,  to  make  matters  worse, 
are  on  the  move  northward  or  southward,  or 
flitting  in  simple  restlessness  from  hill  to 
hill.  However,  I  did  my  best  with  them 
while  the  fun  lasted.      Then  all  in  a  mo- 


236  VIBGINIA 

ment  they  were  gone,  though  I  did  not  see 
them  go ;  and  nothing  was  left  but  the  wea- 
risome iterations  of  oven-birds  and  red-eyes 
where  just  now  were  so  many  singers  and 
talkers,  among  which,  for  aught  I  could  tell, 
there  might  have  been  some  that  it  would 
have  been  worth  the  price  of  a  long  vaca- 
tion to  scrape  even  a  treetop  acquaintance 
with. 

Indeed,  it  was  certain  that  one  member 
of  the  flock  was  a  rarity,  if  not  an  absolute 
novelty.  That  was  the  most  exciting  and  by 
all  odds  the  most  deplorable  incident  of 
the  whole  affair.  I  had  obtained  several 
glimpses  of  him,  but  had  been  unable  to 
determine  his  identity;  a  warbler,  past  all 
reasonable  doubt,  with  pure  white  under 
parts  (the  upper  parts  quite  invisible)  ex- 
cept for  a  black  or  blackish  line,  barely 
made  out,  across  the  lower  throat  or  the 
upper  breast.  He,  of  course,  had  vanished 
with  the  rest,  the  more  was  the  pity.  I  had 
made  a  guess  at  him,  to  be  sure ;  it  is  a 
poor  naturalist  who  cannot  do  as  much  as 
that  (but  a  really  good  naturalist  would 
"form  a  hypothesis,"  I  suppose)  under  al- 
most any  circumstances.     I  had  called  him 


AT  NATURAL   BRIDGE  237 

a  cerulean  warbler.  Once  in  my  life  I  had 
seen  a  bird  of  that  species,  but  only  for  a 
minute.  If  he  wore  a  black  breast-band,  I 
did  not  see  it,  or  else  had  forgotten  it.  If 
I  could  only  have  had  a  look  at  this  fellow's 
back  and  wings  !  As  it  was,  I  was  not 
likely  ever  to  know  him,  though  the  printed 
description  would  either  demolish  or  add  a 
degree  of  plausibility  to  my  offhand  conjec- 
ture. 

The  better  course,  after  losing  a  bevy  of 
wanderers  in  this  way,  is  perhaps  to  remain 
where  one  is  and  await  the  arrival  of  an- 
other detachment  of  the  migratory  host. 
This  advice,  or  something  like  it,  I  seem  to 
remember  having  read,  at  aU  events ;  but  I 
have  never  schooled  myself  to  such  a  pitch 
of  quietism.  For  a  time,  indeed,  I  could 
not  believe  that  the  birds  were  lost,  and 
must  hunt  the  hilltop  over  in  the  hope  of 
another  chance  at  them.  An  empty  hope. 
So  I  did  what  I  always  do  :  the  game  hav- 
ing flown,  I  took  my  own  departure  also.  I 
should  not  find  the  same  flock  again,  but 
with  good  luck  —  which  now  it  was  easy  to 
expect  —  I  might  find  another ;  and  ex- 
cept for  the  single  mysterious  stranger,  that 


238  VIRGINIA 

would  be  better  still.  One  thing  I  was  sure 
of,  —  Natural  Bridge  was  not  to  be  left  out 
of  the  warbler  migration ;  and  one  thing  I 
forgot  entirely,  —  that  I  had  planned  to 
leave  it  by  the  noonday  train. 

My  useless  chase  over  the  broad  hilltop 
had  brought  me  to  the  side  opposite  the  one 
by  which  I  had  ascended,  and  to  save  time, 
as  I  persuaded  myself,  I  plunged  down,  as 
best  I  could,  without  a  trail,  —  a  piece  of 
expensive  economy,  almost  of  course.  In 
the  first  place,  this  haphazardous  descent 
took  me  longer  than  it  would  have  done  to 
retrace  my  steps ;  and  in  the  second  place,  I 
was  compelled  for  much  of  the  distance  to 
force  my  way  through  troublesome  under- 
brush, in  doing  which  I  made  of  necessity 
—  being  a  white  man  —  no  little  noise,  and 
so  was  the  less  likely  to  hear  the  note  of  any 
small  bird,  or  to  come  close  upon  him  with- 
out putting  him  to  flight.  In  general,  let 
the  bird-gazer  keep  to  the  path,  except  in 
open  woods,  or  as  some  specific  errand  may 
lead  him  away  from  it.  In  one  way  and 
another,  nevertheless,  I  got  down  at  last, 
and  after  beating  over  a  piece  of  pine  wood, 
with  little  or  no  result,  I  crossed  a  field  and 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  239 

a  road,  and  entered  a  second  tract  of  hard- 
wood forest. 

The  trees  were  comfortably  low,  with 
much  convenient  shrubbery,  and  after  a  lit- 
tle, seeing  myself  at  the  centre  of  things,  as 
it  were,  I  dropped  into  a  seat  and  allowed 
the  birds  to  gather  about  me.  At  my  back 
was  a  bunch  of  white-throated  sparrows. 
From  the  same  quarter  a  chat  whistled  now 
and  then,  and  white-breasted  nuthatches  and 
a  Carolina  chickadee  did  likewise,  the  last 
with  a  noticeable  variation  in  his  tune, 
which  had  dwindled  to  three  notes.  Here, 
as  on  the  hill  I  had  just  left,  wood  pewees 
and  Acadian  flycatchers  announced  them- 
selves, in  tones  so  dissimilar  as  to  suggest 
no  hint  of  blood  relationship.  The  wood 
pewee  is  surely  the  gentleman  of  the  family, 
so  far  as  the  voice  may  serve  as  an  indica- 
tion of  character.  In  dress  and  personal 
appearance  he  is  a  flycatcher  of  the  flycatch- 
ers ;  but  what  a  contrast  between  his  soft, 
plaintive,  exquisitely  modulated  whistle,  the 
very  expression  of  refinement,  and  the  wild, 
rasping,  over  -  emphatic  vociferations  that 
characterize  the  family  in  general!  The 
more  praise  to  him.     The  Acadians  seemed 


240  VIRGINIA 

to  have  come  northward  in  a  body.  No- 
thing had  been  seen  or  heard  of  them  before, 
but  from  this  morning  they  abounded  in  all 
directions.  In  a  single  night  they  had  taken 
possession  of  the  woods.  Here  was  the  first 
Canadian  warbler  of  the  season,  singing 
from  a  perch  so  uncommonly  elevated  (he 
is  a  lover  of  bushy  thickets  rather  than  of 
trees)  that  for  a  time  it  did  not  come  to  me 
who  he  was,  —  so  exceedingly  earnest  and 
voluble.  A  black  -  throated  blue  warbler 
almost  brushed  my  elbow.  Redstarts  were 
never  so  splendid,  I  thought,  the  white  of 
the  dogwood  blossoms,  now  in  their  prime, 
setting  off  the  black  and  orange  of  the  birds 
in  a  most  brilliant  manner,  as  was  true  also 
of  the  deep  vermilion  of  the  summer  tana- 
ger.  A  Blackburnian  warbler,  whose  flame- 
colored  throat  needs  no  setting  but  its  own, 
had  fallen  into  a  lyrical  mood  very  unusual 
for  him,  and  sang  almost  continuously  for  at 
least  half  an  hour,  —  a  poor  little  song  in 
a  thin  little  voice,  but  full  of  pleasant  sug- 
gestions in  every  note.  The  first  Swainson 
thrush  was  present,  with  no  companion  of 
his  own  kind,  so  far  as  appeared.  I  pro- 
longed my  stay  on  purpose  to  hear  him  sing, 


AT  NATUEAL  BRIDGE  241 

but  was  obliged  to  content  myself  with  the 
siofht  of  him  and  the  sound  of  his  sweet, 
quick  whistle. 

All  the  while,  as  I  watched  one  favorite 
iinother  would  come  between  us.  Once  it 
was  a  humming-bird,  a  bit  of  animate  beauty 
that  must  always  be  attended  to ;  and  once, 
when  the  place  had  of  a  sudden  fallen  silent, 
and  I  had  taken  out  a  book,  I  was  startled 
by  a  flash  of  white  among  the  branches,  — 
a  red-headed  woodpecker,  in  superb  color, 
new  for  the  year,  and  on  all  accounts  wel- 
come. He  remained  for  a  time  in  silence, 
and  then  in  silence  departed  (he  had  been 
almost  too  near  me  before  he  knew  it)  ;  but 
having  gone,  he  began  a  little  way  off  to 
play  the  tree-frog  for  my  amusement.  After 
him  a  hairy  woodpecker  made  his  appear- 
ance, with  sharp,  peremptory  signals,  highly 
characteristic  ;  and  then,  from  some  point 
near  by,  a  rose-breasted  grosbeak's  hie  was 
heard. 

It  was  high  noon  before  I  was  done  with 
"receiving"  (one  of  the  prettiest  "func- 
tions "  of  the  year,  though  none  of  the  news- 
papers got  wind  of  it),  and  returned  to  the 
hotel,  where  the  landlord  smiled  when  I  told 


242  VIRGINIA 

him  that  some  friends  of  mine  had  arrived, 
and  I  should  stay  a  few  days  longer. 


n 


My  enjoyment  of  the  country  about  the 
Bridge  may  be  said  to  have  begun  with 
my  settling  down  for  a  more  leisurely  stay. 
Hurry  and  discontent  are  poor  helps  to 
appreciation.  That  afternoon,  the  morning 
having  been  devoted  to  ornithological  ex- 
citements, I  strolled  over  to  Mount  Jeffer- 
son, and  spent  an  hour  in  the  observatory, 
where  a  delicious  breeze  was  blowing.  The 
"  mountain "  proved  to  be  nothing  more 
than  a  round  grassy  hilltop,  —  the  highest 
point  in  a  sheep-pasture,  —  but  it  offered, 
nevertheless,  a  wide  and  charming  prospect : 
mountains  near  and  far,  a  world  of  green 
hills,  with  here  and  there  a  level  stretch, 
most  restful  to  the  eye,  of  the  James  River 
valley,  in  the  great  Valley  of  Virginia.  Up 
from  the  surrounding  field  came  the  tinkle 
of  sheep-bells,  and  down  in  one  corner  of  it 
young  men  were  slowly  gathering,  some  in 
wagons,  some  on  horseback,  for  a  game  of 
ball.      There  was  to  be  a   "  match  "    that 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  243 

"  evening,"  I  had  been  told,  between  the 
Bridge  nine  (I  am  sorry  not  to  remember 
its  name)  and  the  Buena  Vistas.  It  turned 
out,  however,  so  I  learned  the  next  day,  that 
a  supposed  case  of  smallpox  at  Buena  Vista 
had  made  such  an  interchange  of  athletic 
courtesies  inexpedient  for  the  time  being, 
and  the  Bridge  men  were  obliged  to  be  con- 
tent with  a  trial  of  skill  among  themselves, 
for  which  they  chose  up  ("  picked  off ") 
after  the  usual  fashion,  the  two  leaders  de- 
ciding which  should  have  the  first  choice  by 
the  old  Yankee  test  of  grasping  a  bat  alter- 
nately hand  over  hand,  till  one  of  them 
should  be  able  to  cover  the  end  of  it  with 
his  thumb.  Such  things  were  pleasant  to 
hear  of.  I  accepted  them  as  of  patriotic 
significance,  tokens  of  national  unity.  My 
informant,  by  the  way,  was  the  same  man, 
a  young  West  Virginian,  who  had  told  me 
where  to  look  for  Washington's  initials  on 
the  wall  of  the  bridge.  My  specialties  ap- 
pealed to  him  in  a  measure,  and  he  con- 
fessed that  he  wished  he  were  a  botanist. 
He  was  always  very  fond  of  flowers.  His 
side  had  been  victorious  in  the  ball  game, 
he  said,  in  answer  to  my  inquiry.     Some  of 


244  VIRGINIA 

the  players  must  have  come  from  a  consid- 
erable distance,  it  seemed,  as  there  was  no 
sign  of  a  village  or  even  of  a  hamlet,  so  far 
as  I  had  discovered,  anywhere  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. The  Bridge  is  not  in  any  township, 
but  simply  in  Rockbridge  County,  after  a  Vir- 
ginia custom  quite  foreign  to  a  New  Eng- 
lander's  notions  of  geographical  propriety. 

The  prospect  from  Mount  Jefferson  was 
beautiful,  as  I  have  said,  but  on  my  return 
I  happened  upon  one  that  pleased  me  better. 
I  had  been  down  through  Cedar  Creek  ra- 
vine, and  had  taken  my  own  way  out,  up 
the  right-hand  slope  through  the  woods, 
noting  the  flowers  as  I  walked,  especially 
the  blue-eyed  grass  and  the  scarlet  catchfly 
(battlefield  pink),  a  marvelous  bit  of  color, 
and  was  following  the  edge  of  the  cliff  to- 
ward the  hotel,  when,  finding  myself  still 
with  time  to  spare,  I  sat  down  to  rest  and 
be  quiet.  By  accident  I  chose  a  spot  where 
between  ragged,  homely  cedars  I  looked 
straight  down  the  glen  —  over  a  stretch  of 
the  brook  far  below  —  to  the  bridge,  throusfh 
which  could  be  seen  wooded  hills  backed  by 
Thunder  Mountain,  long  and  massive,  just 
now  mostly  in  shadow,  like  the  rest  of  the 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  245 

worlcl,  but  having  its  lower  slopes  touched 
with  an  exquisite  half-light,  which  produced 
a  kind  of  prismatic  effect  upon  the  freshly 
green  foliage.  It  was  an  enchanting  spec- 
tacle and  a  delightful  hour.  Now  my  eye 
settled  upon  the  ravine  and  the  brook,  now 
upon  the  arch  of  the  bridge,  now  upon  the 
hills  beyond.  And  now,  as  I  continued  to 
look,  the  particulars  fell  into  place,  —  drop- 
ping in  a  sense  out  of  sight,  —  and  the 
scene  became  one.  By  and  by  the  light  in- 
creased upon  the  broad  precipitous  face  of 
the  mountain,  softness  and  beauty  inexpres- 
sible, while  the  remainder  of  the  landscape 
lay  in  deep  shadow. 

I  fell  to  wondering,  at  last,  what  it  is  that 
constitutes  the  peculiar  attractiveness  of  a 
limited  view  —  limited  in  breadth,  not  in 
depth  —  as  compared  with  a  panorama  of 
half  the  horizon.  The  only  answer  I  gave 
myself  was  that,  for  the  supreme  enjoyment 
of  beauty,  the  eye  must  be  at  rest,  satisfied, 
with  no  temptation  to  wander.  We  are 
finite  creatures  with  infinite  desires.  The 
sight  must  go  far,  — to  the  rim  of  the  world, 
or  to  some  grand  interposing  object  so  re- 
mote as  to  be  of  itself  a  natural  and  satisfy- 


246  VIRGINIA 

ing  limit  of  vision  ;  and  the  eye  must  be  held 
to  that  point,  not  by  a  distracting  exercise 
of  the  will,  but  by  the  quieting  constraint  of 
circumstances. 

Let  my  theorizing  be  true  or  false,  I 
greatly  enjoyed  the  picture  ;  the  deep,  dark, 
wooded  ravine,  with  the  line  of  water  run- 
ning through  it  lengthwise,  the  magnificent 
stone  arch,  the  low  hills  in  the  middle  dis- 
tance, and  Thunder  Mountain  a  background 
for  the  whole.  The  mountain,  as  has  been 
said,  was  a  long  ridge,  not  a  peak ;  and 
sharp  as  it  looked  from  this  point  of  view,  it 
was  very  likely  flat  at  the  top.  Like  Look- 
out Mountain  and  Walden's  Ridge,  it  might, 
for  anything  I  knew,  be  roomy  enough  to 
hold  one  or  two  Massachusetts  counties  upon 
its  summit.  While  I  sat  gazing  at  it  the 
sun  went  down  and  left  it  of  a  deep  sombre 
blue.  Then,  of  a  sudden,  a  small  heron 
flew  past,  and  a  pileated  woodpecker  some- 
where behind  me  set  up  a  prolonged  and 
lusty  shout ;  and  a  few  minutes  later  I  was 
startled  to  see  between  me  and  the  sunset 
sky  a  flock  of  six  big  herons  flying  slowly  in 
single  file,  like  so  many  pelicans.  From 
their  size  they  should  have  been  Ardea  hero- 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  247 

dias,  but  in  that  light  there  was  no  telling 
of  colors.  It  was  a  ghostly  procession,  so 
silent  and  unexpected,  worthy  of  the  place 
and  of  the  hour.  I  was  beginning  to  feel 
at  home.  A  wood  tlirush  sang  for  nie  as  I 
continued  my  course  to  the  hotel,  and  my 
spirit  sang  with  him.  "  I  'm  glad  I  am 
alive,"  my  pencil  wrote  of  its  own  accord  at 
the  end  of  the  day's  jottings. 

I  woke  the  next  morning  to  the  lively 
music  of  a  whippoorwill,  —  the  same,  I 
suppose,  that  had  sung  me  to  sleep  the  even- 
ing before.  He  performed  that  service  faith- 
fully as  long  as  I  remained  at  the  Bridge, 
and  always  to  my  unmixed  satisfaction. 
Whippoorwills  are  among  my  best  birds, 
and  of  recent  years  I  have  had  too  little  of 
them.  Immediately  after  breakfast  I  must 
go  again  to  the  roadside  wood,  and  then  to 
Buck  Hill,  as  a  dog  must  go  again  to  bark 
under  a  tree  up  which  he  has  once  driven  a 
cat  or  a  squirrel.  But  there  is  no  duplicat- 
ing of  experiences.  The  birds  —  the  flocks 
of  travelers  —  were  not  there.  Chats  were 
calling  ceou\  ceov:^  with  the  true  country- 
man's twang  ;  and  what  was  much  better,  a 
Swainson  thrush  was  singing.     Better  still. 


248  VIRGINIA 

a  pair  of  blue  yellow-backed  warblers  (the 
most  abundant  representatives  of  the  faruily 
tbus  far)  had  begun  the  construction  of  a 
nest  in  a  black -walnut -tree,  suspending  it 
from  a  rather  large  branch  ("  as  big  as  my 
thumb  ")  at  a  height  of  perhaps  twenty  feet. 
It  was  little  more  than  a  frame  as  yet,  the 
light  shining  through  it  everywhere ;  and 
the  bird,  perhaps  because  of  my  presence, 
seemed  in  no  haste  about  its  completion.  I 
saw  her  bring  what  looked  like  a  piece  of 
lichen  and  adjust  it  into  place  (though  she 
carried  it  elsewhere  first  —  with  wonderful 
slyness !),  but  my  patience  gave  out  before 
she  came  back  with  a  second  one. 

On  Buck  Hill,  in  the  comparative  absence 
of  birds,  I  amused  myself  with  a  "  dry  land 
tarrapin,"  as  my  West  Virginia  acquaint- 
ance had  called  it  (otherwise  known  as  a 
box  turtle),  a  creature  which  I  had  seen 
several  times  in  my  wanderings,  and  had 
asked  him  about;  a  new  species  to  me,  of 
a  peculiarly  humpbacked  appearance,  and 
curious  for  its  habit  of  shutting  itself  up  in 
its  case  when  disturbed,  the  anterior  third 
of  the  lower  shell  being  jointed  for  that 
purpose.     A  phlegmatic  customer,  it  seemed 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  249 

to  be ;  looking  at  me  with  dull,  nnspecu- 
lative  eyes,  and  sometimes  responding  to  a 
pretty  violent  nudge  with  only  a  partial 
closing  of  its  lid.  It  is  very  fond  of  may 
apples  (mandrake),  I  was  told,  and  is  really 
one  of  the  "  features  "  of  the  dry  hill  woods. 
I  ran  upon  it  continually. 

A  lazy  afternoon  jaunt  over  a  lonely  wood 
road,  untried  before,  yielded  little  of  men- 
tionable  interest  except  the  sight  of  a  blue 
grosbeak  budding  the  upper  branches  of  a 
tree  in  the  manner  of  a  purple  finch  or  a 
rose-breast.  I  call  him  a  blue  grosbeak,  as 
I  called  him  at  the  time  ;  but  he  went  into 
my  book  that  evening  with  a  damnatory 
question  mark  attached  to  his  name.  He 
had  been  rather  far  away  and  pretty  high  ; 
and  the  possibilities  of  error  magnified  them- 
selves on  second  thought,  till  I  said  to  my- 
self, "  Well,  he  may  have  been  an  indigo- 
bird,  after  all."  Second  thought  is  the 
mother  of  uncertainty  ;  and  uncertainties 
are  poor  things  for  a  man's  comfort.  The 
seasons  were  met  here ;  for  even  while  I 
busied  myself  with  the  blue  grosbeak  (as  he 
pretty  surely  was,  for  all  my  want  of  assur- 
ance) a  crossbill  flew  over  with  loud  calls. 


250  VIRGINIA 

In  the  same  place  I  heard  a  tremendous 
hammering  a  little  on  one  side  of  me,  so 
vigorous  a  piece  of  work  that  I  was  per- 
suaded the  workman  could  be  nobody  but 
a  pileated  woodpecker.  A  long  time  I  stood 
with  my  gaze  fastened  upon  the  tree  from 
which  the  noise  seemed  to  come.  Would 
the  fellow  never  show  himself  ?  Yes,  he  put 
his  head  out  from  behind  a  limb  at  last 
(what  a  fiery  crest !),  saw  me  on  the  instant, 
and  was  gone  like  a  flash.  Then  from  a 
little  distance  he  set  up  a  resounding  halloo. 
This  was  only  the  second  time  that  birds  of 
his  kind  had  been  seen  hereabout,  but  the 
voice  had  been  heard  daily,  and  more  than 
once  I  had  noticed  what  I  could  have  no 
doubt  were  nest-holes  of  their  making.  One 
of  these,  on  Buck  Hill,  —  freshly  cut,  if 
appearances  went  for  anything,  —  I  under- 
took to  play  the  spy  upon  ;  but  if  the  nest 
was  indeed  in  use  the  birds  were  too  wary 
for  me,  or  I  was  very  unfortunate  in  my 
choice  of  hours.  Time  was  precious,  and 
the  secret  seemed  likely  to  cost  more  than  it 
would  bring,  with  so  many  other  matters  in- 
viting ray  attention.  Nest  or  no  nest,  I  was 
glad  to  be  within  the  frequent  sound  of  that 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  251 

wild,  ringing,  long-drawn  shout,  a  true  voice 
of  the  wilderness  ;  as  if  the  Hebrew  pro- 
phecy were  fulfilled,  and  the  mountains  and 
the  hills  had  found  a  tongue. 

It  was  not  until  the  sixth  day  that  I  went 
to  Lincoln  Heights,  a  place  worth  all  the 
rest  of  the  countryside,  I  soon  came  to  think, 
with  the  single  exception  of  Cedar  Creek 
ravine.  A  winding  wood  road  carried  me 
thither  (the  distance  may  be  two  miles  ;  but 
I  have  little  idea  what  it  is,  though  I  covered 
it  once  or  twice  a  day  for  the  next  four  days), 
and  might  have  been  made  —  half  made, 
just  to  my  liking  —  for  my  private  conven- 
ience. I  believe  I  never  met  any  one  upon 
it,  going  or  coming. 

The  glory  of  the  spot  is  its  trees  ;  but  with 
me,  as  things  fell  out,  these  took  in  the 
order  of  time  a  second  place.  My  first  ad- 
miration was  not  for  them,  admirable  as  they 
were,  but  for  a  few  birds  in  the  tops  of  them. 
In  short,  at  my  first  approach  to  the  Heights 
(there  is  no  thought  of  climbing,  but  only 
the  most  gradual  of  ascents)  I  began  to 
hear  from  the  branches  overhead,  now  here, 
now  there,  an  occasional  weak  warbler's  song 
that  set  my  curiosity  on  edge.     It  was  not 


252  VIRGINIA 

the  parula's  (blue  yellow-back's),  but  like 
it.  What  should  it  be,  then,  except  the 
cerulean's  ?  By  and  by  I  caught  a  glimpse 
of  a  bird,  clear  white  below,  with  a  dark 
line  across  the  breast ;  and  yes,  I  saw  what 
I  was  looking  for,  —  though  the  bird  flew  to 
another  branch  the  next  moment,  —  black 
streaks  along  the  sides  of  the  body.  There 
were  at  least  eight  or  ten  others  like  him  in 
the  treetops  ;  and  it  was  a  neck-breaking 
half -hour  that  I  passed  in  watching  them, 
determined  as  I  was  to  gain  a  view  not  only 
of  the  under  parts,  but  of  the  back  and 
wings.  The  labor  and  difficulty  of  the  search 
were  increased  indefinitely  by  the  confusing 
presence  of  numerous  other  warblers  of 
various  kinds  in  the  same  lofty  branches, 
making  it  inevitable  that  many  opera-glass 
shots  should  be  wasted.  It  is  no  help  to  a 
man's  equanimity  at  such  a  time  to  spend  a 
priceless  three  minutes  —  any  one  of  which 
may  be  the  last  —  in  getting  the  glass  upon 
a  tiny  thing  that  flits  incessantly  from  one 
leafy  twig  to  another,  only  to  find  in  the  end 
that  it  is  nothing  but  a  myrtle  warbler  ;  a 
pretty  creature,  no  doubt,  but  of  no  more 
consequence  just  now  than  an  English  spar- 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  253 

row.  To-day,  however,  the  birds  favored 
me ;  no  untimely  whim  hurried  them  away 
to  another  wood,  and  patience  had  its  re- 
ward. Little  by  little  my  purpose  was 
accomplished  and  my  mind  cleared  of  all 
uncertainty.  Then  I  took  out  my  pencil  to 
characterize  the  song  while  it  was  still  in 
my  ears,  and  still  new.  "  Greatly  like  one 
of  the  more  broken  forms  of  the  parula's,"  I 
wrote,  a  bird  repeating  it  at  that  very  instant 
by  way  of  confirmation.  "  I  can  imagine  a 
fairly  sharp  ear  being  deceived  by  it,  espe- 
cially in  a  place  like  this,  where  parulas 
have  been  singing  from  morning  till  night, 
until  the  listener  has  tired  of  them  and  be- 
come listless."  This  sentence  the  reader 
may  keep  in  mind,  if  he  will,  to  glance  back 
upon  for  his  amusement  in  the  light  of  a 
subsequent  experience  which  it  will  be  my 
duty  to  relate  before  I  have  done  with  my 
story. 

Between  the  migratory  "  transients  "  and 
the  birds  already  at  home,  the  place  was 
pretty  full  of  wings.  A  Swainson  thrush 
sang,  and  from  a  bushy  slope  came  a  nasal 
thrush  voice  that  should  have  been  a  veery's. 
I  took  chas^  at  once,  and  caught  a  glimpse 


254  VIRGINIA 

of  a  reddish-brown  bird  darting  out  of  sight 
before  me.  Do  my  best,  I  could  find  nothing 
more  of  it.  If  it  was  a  veery,  as  I  suppose, 
it  was  the  only  one  I  saw  in  Virginia,  where 
the  species,  from  Dr.  Rives's  account  of  the 
matter,  seems  to  be  a  rather  uncommon  mi- 
grant. Unhappily,  I  could  not  bring  my 
scientific  conscience  to  list  it  on  so  hurried 
a  sight,  even  with  the  note  as  corroborative 
testimony.  That,  for  aught  I  could  posi- 
tively assert,  might  have  been  a  gray-cheek's, 
while  the  reddish  color  might  with  equal 
possibility  have  belonged  to  a  wood  thrush, 
clear  as  it  had  seemed  at  the  moment  that 
what  I  was  looking  at  was  the  back  of  the 
bird  itself,  and  not  the  back  of  its  head. 
Doubt  is  credulous.  All  kinds  of  negatives 
are  plausible  to  it,  and  once  it  has  adopted 
one  it  will  maintain  it  in  the  face  of  the  five 
senses. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  path,  in  the 
bushy  angles  of  a  Virginia  fence,  a  hooded 
warbler  showed  himself,  furtive  and  silent, 
—  my  only  Bridge  specimen,  to  my  great 
surprise  ;  and  near  him  was  a  female  black- 
throated  blue,  a  queer-looking  body,  like 
nothing  in  particular,  yet  labeled  past  mis- 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  255 

take,  which  I  can  never  see  without  a  kind 
of  wonder.  Among  the  treetop  birds  were 
Bhickburnian  warblers,  black-throated  greens 
and  blues,  chestnut-sides,  redstarts,  myrtle- 
birds,  red -eyed  and  yellow-throated  vireos, 
and  indigo -birds.  Many  white  -  throated 
sparrows  still  lingered  ;  singing  flat,  as 
usual,  —  the  only  birds  I  know  of  that  find 
it  impossible  to  hold  the  pitch.  The  de- 
fect has  its  favorable  side ;  it  makes  their 
concerts  amusing.  I  remember  seeing  a 
quiet  gentleman  thrown  into  fits  of  uncon- 
trollable laughter  by  the  rehearsal  of  a 
spring  flock,  bird  after  bird  starting  the 
tune,  and  not  one  in  ten  of  them  keeping  its 
whistle  true  to  the  conclusion  of  the  measure. 
All  these  things,  —  though  they  may  seem 
not  many,  —  with  the  long  rests  and  numer- 
ous side  excursions  that  went  with  them, 
consumed  the  morning  hours  before  I  knew 
it,  so  that  I  was  hardly  at  the  end  of  the 
way  before  it  was  time  to  return  for  dinner. 
For  the  afternoon  nothing  was  to  be 
thought  of  but  another  visit  to  the  same 
place,  —  '•  the  finest  place  I  have  seen  yet, 
and  the  finest  walk."  So  I  had  put  down 
the  morning's  discovery.    The  cerulean  war- 


256  VIRGINIA 

bier  I  found  spoken  of  by  Dr.  Rives  as 
"  accidental  or  very  rare ;  "  in  the  light  of 
which  entry  the  dozen  or  so  of  specimens 
seen  and  heard  during  the  forenoon  acquired 
a  fresh  interest. 

The  second  jaunt,  because  it  ivas  a  second 
one,  could  be  taken  more  at  leisure ;  and  as 
the  birds  gave  me  less  employment,  my  eyes 
were  more  upon  the  trees.  These,  as  I  had 
felt  before,  were  a  wonder  and  a  comfort ;  it 
was  a  benediction  to  walk  under  them,  as  if 
one  were  within  the  precincts  of  a  holy 
place  :  oaks  for  the  most  part  (of  several 
kinds),  with  black  walnut,  shagbark,  tulip, 
chestnut,  and  other  species,  §et  irregularly, 
or  rather  left  standing  irregularly,  two  or 
three  deep,  beside  the  road  on  either  hand ; 
a  royal  uphill  avenue,  which  near  the  top 
became  an  open  grove.  Except  in  Florida, 
I  had  never  seen  a  more  magnificent  growth. 
Some  of  the  trees  had  grapevines  and  Vir- 
ginia creeper  clinging  about  them.  Up  one 
huge  oak,  with  strange  flaky  bark,  like  a 
shagbark-tree's  (a  white  oak,  nevertheless, 
to  judge  from  its  half-grown  leaves),  a  grape- 
vine had  mounted  for  a  height  of  forty  feet, 
as  I  estimated  the  distance,  not  making  use 


yiT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  257 

of  the  bole,  but  of  the  limbs,  seeming  to  leap 
from  one  to  another,  even  when  they  were 
ten  feet  ai)art.  It  must  have  been  of  the 
tree's  age,  I  suppose,  and  had  grown  with 
its  growth.  In  the  shadow  of  these  giants, 
yet  not  overshadowed  by  them,  were  flower- 
ing dogwoods  and  redbuds.  It  is  a  pretty 
habit  these  two  have  of  growing  side  by 
side,  as  if  they  knew  the  value  of  contrasted 
colors. 

At  a  point  on  the  edge  of  the  grove  I 
turned  to  enjoy  the  prospect  southward : 
mountains  everywhere,  with  the  more  pointed 
of  the  twin  Peaks  of  Otter  showins:  between 
two  oaks  that  barely  gave  it  room ;  all  the 
mountains  radiantly  beautiful,  with  cloud 
shadows  flecking  their  wooded  slopes.  Not 
a  house  was  in  sight ;  but  in  one  place  be- 
yond the  middle-distance  hills  a  thin  blue 
smoke  was  rising.  There,  doubtless,  lay  the 
valley  of  the  James.  Just  before  me,  on 
the  left  of  the  open  field,  stood  a  peculiarly 
graceful  dogwood,  all  in  a  glory  of  white, 
one  fan-shaped  branch  above  another,  —  a 
miracle  of  loveliness.  The  eye  that  saw  it 
was  satisfied  with  seeing.  Beyond  it  a  chat 
played  the  clown   (knowing  no  better,  even 


258  VIRGINIA 

to-day),  and  a  rose-breast  began  warbling. 
It  seemed  a  tender  story,  —  sweetness  beyond 
words,  and  happiness  without  a  shadow. 
From  a  second  point,  a  little  farther  on,  the 
entire  southern  horizon  came  into  view,  with 
both  the  Peaks  of  Otter  visible;  a  truly 
enchanting  picture,  the  sky  full  of  sunlight 
and  floating  white  clouds. 

In  a  treetop  behind  me  a  cerulean  warbler 
had  been  singing,  but  flew  away  as  I  turned 
about.  My  only  sight  of  him  was  on  the 
wing,  a  mere  speck  in  the  air.  Afterward  a 
parula  gave  out  his  tune,  running  the  notes 
straight  upward  and  snapping  them  off  at 
the  end  in  whiplash  fashion,  as  much  as  to 
say,  "  Now  see  if  you  can  tell  the  difference." 
And  then,  just  as  I  was  ready  to  leave  the 
grove,  stepping  along  a  footpath  through  a 
bramble  patch,  I  descried  almost  at  my  feet 
a  warbler,  —  a  female  by  her  look  and  de- 
meanor, and  a  stranger ;  blue  and  white, 
with  dark  streakings  along  the  sides.  I  lost 
her  soon  ;  but  she  had  seemed  to  be  lookins: 
for  nest  materials,  and  of  course  I  waited  for 
her  to  return.  This  she  presently  did,  and 
now  I  saw  her  strip  bits  of  bark  from  plant 
stems  till  she  had  her  bill  full  of  short  pieces. 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  259 

Carrying  these,  she  disappeared  in  a  bramble 
and  grapevine  thicket.  I  waited,  but  she 
did  not  come  back.  Then  I  stole  into  the 
place  after  her,  and  in  a  moment  there  she 
was  before  me ;  but  without  complaint  or 
any  symptom  of  perturbation  she  passed 
quietly  along,  and  again  I  lost  her.  I  kept 
my  position  till  I  was  tired,  and  then  went 
back  to  the  wood  and  sat  down  ;  and  in  a 
few  minutes  —  how  it  happened  I  could  not 
tell  —  there  she  stood  once  more,  wearing 
the  same  innocent,  preoccupied  air.  This 
time  I  saw  her  fly  down  the  slope  and  dis- 
appear in  a  clump  of  undergrowth.  I  fol- 
lowed, took  a  seat,  waited,  and  continued  to 
wait.  All  was  in  vain.  That  was  the  last 
of  her.  She  had  played  her  cards  well,  or 
perhaps  I  had  played  mine  poorly ;  and 
finally  I  turned  my  steps  homeward,  where 
a  comparison  of  my  notes  with  Dr.  Coues's 
description  proved  the  bird  to  be,  as  I  had 
believed,  a  female  cerulean  warbler.  Her 
nest  would  probably  be  the  first  one  of  its 
kind  ever  found  in  Virginia. 

On  the  way  a  male  sang  and  showed  him- 
self. Now,  too,  I  discovered  for  the  first 
time  that  there  were  tupelo-trees  among  the 


260  VIRGINIA 

large  oaks  and  walnuts ;  much  smaller  than 
they,  and  for  that  reason,  it  is  to  be  supposed, 
not  noticed  in  my  three  previous  passages 
along  the  avenue.  They  are  particular  favor- 
ites of  mine,  and  I  made  them  sincere  apolo- 
gies. In  another  place  was  a  patch  of  what 
I  knew  must  be  the  fragrant  sumach,  some- 
thing I  had  wished  to  see  for  many  years  : 
low,  upright  shrubs,  yet  resembling  poison 
ivy  so  closely  that  for  a  minute  I  shrank 
from  gathering  a  specimen,  although  I  was 
certain  beyond  a  peradventure  that  the 
plant  was  not  poison  ivy  and  could  not  be 
noxious  to  the  touch ;  just  as  people  in  gen- 
eral, through  force  of  early  instruction  and 
example  (miscalled  instinct),  shiver  at  the 
thought  of  handling  a  snake,  though  it  be  of 
some  kind  which  they  know  to  be  as  harm- 
less as  a  kitten.  While  in  chase  of  the  ceru- 
lean, also,  I  had  stumbled  on  several  bunches 
of  cancer-root  QConophoUs)^  rising  out  of 
the  dead  leaves,  a  dozen  or  more  of  stems  in 
each  close  bunch  ;  queer,  unwholesome-look- 
ing, yellowish  things,  reminding  me  of  ears 
of  rice-corn,  so  called.  I  had  never  seen  the 
plant  till  the  day  before. 

The  next  morning  my  course  was  beyond 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  261 

discussion  or  argument.  I  must  go  again  to 
Lincoln  Heights.  The  thought  of  the  female 
cerulean  warbler  and  her  nest  would  not 
suffer  me  to  do  anything  else.  But  for  that 
matter,  I  should  probably  have  taken  the 
same  path  had  I  never  seen  her.  The  trees, 
the  prospects,  and  the  general  birdiness  of 
the  place  were  of  themselves  an  irresistible 
attraction.  On  the  way  I  skirted  a  grove  of 
small  pines,  standing  between  the  road  and 
the  edge  of  Cedar  Creek  ravine :  dull,  scrubby 
trees,  like  pitch-pines,  but  less  bright  in  color ; 
of  the  same  kind  as  those  amid  which,  on 
Cameron  Hill  and  Lookout  Mountain,  in 
Tennessee,  there  had  been  so  notable  a  gath- 
ering of  warblers  the  year  before.  Pinus 
pungens^  Table  Mountain  pine,  I  suppose 
they  were,  though  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  I  was  never  at  the  pains  to  settle  the 
point.  Here  at  Natural  Bridge  I  had  found 
all  such  woods  deserted  day  after  day,  till  I 
had  ceased  to  think  them  worth  looking"  into. 
Now,  however,  as  I  idled  past,  I  caught  the 
faint  sibilant  notes  of  a  bird-song,  and 
stopped  to  listen.  Not  a  blackpoll's,  I  said 
to  myself,  but  wonderfully  near  it.  And 
then  it  flashed  into  my  mind  what  a  friend 


262  VIRGINIA 

had  told  me  a  few  years  before.  "  When 
you  hear  a  song  that  is  like  the  blackpoll's, 
but  different,"  he  had  said,  "  look  the  bird 
up.  It  will  most  likely  be  a  Cape  May." 
He  was  one  of  the  lucky  men  (almost  the 
only  one  of  my  acquaintance)  who  had  heard 
that  rare  warbler's  voice.  I  turned  aside,  of 
course,  and  made  a  cautious  entry  among  the 
pines.  The  bird  continued  its  singing.  Yes, 
it  was  like  the  blackpolFs,  but  with  a  zip 
rather  than  a  zee.  Nearer  and  nearer  I  crept, 
inch  by  inch.  If  the  fellow  were  a  Cape 
May,  it  would  be  carelessness  inexcusable 
not  to  make  sure  of  the  fact.  And  soon  I 
had  my  glass  upon  him,  —  in  high  plumage, 
red  cheeks  and  all.  He  had  not  been  dis- 
turbed in  the  least,  and  kept  up  his  music 
till  I  had  had  my  fill  and  could  stay  no 
longer,  —  all  the  while  in  low  branches  and 
in  clear  view.  Few  songs  could  be  less  in- 
teresting in  themselves,  but  few  could  have 
been  more  welcome,  —  for  the  better  part  of 
twenty  years  I  had  been  listening  for  it: 
about  five  notes,  a  little  louder  and  more 
emphatic  than  the  blackpoll's,  it  seemed  to 
me,  but  still  faint  and,  as  I  expressed  it  to 
myself,  "  next  to  nothing."     The  handsome 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  263 

creature  —  olive  and  bright  yellow,  boldly 
marked  with  black  and  white  —  remained 
the  whole  time  in  one  tree,  traveling  over 
the  limbs  in  a  rather  listless  fashion,  and 
singing  almost  incessantly.  He  was  my 
hundredth  Virginia  bird,  —  as  my  list  then 
stood,  question  marks  included,  —  and  the 
second  one  whose  song  I  had  heard  for  the 
first  time  on  this  vacation  trip.  The  day 
had  begun  prosperously. 

After  such  a  stirring  up,  a  man's  ears  are 
apt  to  be  abnormally  sensitive,  not  to  say 
imaginative  ;  then,  if  ever,  he  will  hear  won- 
ders :  for  which  reason,  it  may  be,  I  had 
turned  but  a  corner  or  two  before  I  was 
stopped  by  another  set  of  notes,  a  strain 
that  I  knew,  or  felt  that  I  ought  to  know, 
but  could  not  place  a  name  upon  at  the  mo- 
ment. This  bird,  too,  was  run  down  with- 
out difficulty,  and  proved  to  be  a  magnolia 
warbler,  —  another  yellow  -  rump,  like  the 
Cape  May  and  the  myrtle-bird.  The  song, 
unlike  its  owner,  is  but  slightly  marked,  and 
to  make  matters  worse,  is  heard  by  me  only 
in  the  season  of  the  bird's  spring  passage ; 
but  I  laughed  at  myself  for  not  recognizing 
it.     I  was  still   in  a  mood  for  discoveries, 


264  VIRGINIA 

however,  and  within  half  an  hour  was  again 
in  eager  chase,  this  time  over  a  crazy  zigzag 
fence  into  a  dense  thicket,  all  for  a  black- 
and-white  creeper  (my  fiftieth  specimen, 
perhaps,  in  the  last  fortnight),  whose  notes, 
as  they  came  to  me  from  a  distance,  sounded 
like  a  creeper's,  to  be  sure,  but  with  such  a 
measure  of  difference  as  kept  me  on  nettles 
till  the  author  of  them  was  in  sight.  I  felt 
like  a  fool,  as  the  common  expression  is,  but 
was  having  "  a  good  time,"  notwithstanding. 
Here  were  the  first  trailing  blackberry 
blossoms.  The  season  was  making  haste. 
"  Come,  children,  it  is  the  7th  of  May,"  I 
seemed  to  hear  the  "bud-crowned  spring" 
saying.  The  woods  had  burst  into  almost 
full  leaf  within  a  week.  This  morning, 
also,  I  found  the  first  flowers  of  the  Dode- 
catheon ;  three  plants,  each  with  only  one 
bloom  as  yet;  white,  odd-looking,  pointed, 
—  like  a  stylographic  pen,  my  profane  cleri- 
cal fancy  suggested.  American  cowslip  and 
shooting  star  the  flower  is  called  in  the 
Manual.  American  cyclamen  would  hit  it 
pretty  well,  I  thought,  its  most  striking  -pe- 
culiarity  being  the  reflexed,  cyclamenic  car- 
riage of  the  petals.     I  had  been  wondering 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  265 

what  those  broad  root -leaves  were,  as  I 
passed  them  here  and  there  in  the  woods. 
The  present  was  only  my  second  sight  of 
the  blossom  in  a  wild  state,  the  first  one 
having  been  on  the  battlefield  of  Chicka- 
mauga.  It  is  matter  for  thankfulness,  an 
enrichment  of  the  memory,  when  a  pretty 
flower  is  thus  associated  with  a  famous 
place. 

Among  the  old  trees  on  the  Heights  a 
cerulean  warbler  and  a  blue  yellow-back 
were  singing  nearly  in  the  same  breath.  If 
I  did  not  become  lastingly  familiar  with  the 
distinction  between  the  two  songs,  it  was  not 
to  be  the  birds'  fault.  A  second  cerulean 
(or  possibly  the  same  one  ;  it  was  impossible 
to  be  certain  on  that  point,  nor  did  it  mat- 
ter) was  near  the  grapevine  tangle,  and  at 
the  moment  of  my  approach  was  holding  a 
controversy  with  a  creeper.  He  had  re- 
served the  spot,  as  it  aj^peared,  and  was 
insisting  upon  his  claim.  My  spirits  rose. 
It  was  this  clump  of  shrubbery  that  I  had 
come  to  sit  beside,  on  the  chance  of  seeing 
again,  and  tracking  to  her  nest,  the  female 
whose  behavior  had  so  excited  my  hopes  the 
afternoon  before.      "Nest  small   and  neat, 


266  VIRGINIA 

in  fork  of  a  bough  20-50  feet  from  the 
ground : "  so  I  had  read  in  the  Key,  and 
henceforth  knew  what  I  was  to  look  for. 
For  a  full  hour  I  remained  on  guard. 
Twice  the  male  cerulean  chased  some  other 
bird  about  in  a  manner  extremely  suspi- 
cious ;  but  he  kept  her  (or  him)  so  con- 
stantly on  the  move  that  I  had  no  fair  sight 
of  her  plumage.  Beyond  that  my  vigil  went 
for  nothing.  I  must  try  again.  If  a  man 
cannot  waste  an  hour  once  in  a  while,  he  had 
better  not  undertake  the  finding  of  birds' 
nests. 

For  the  walk  homeward  I  took  a  course 
of  my  own  down  the  open  face  of  the  hill, 
climbing  a  fence  or  two  (I  could  tell  far  in 
advance  the  safest  places  at  which  to  get 
over  —  the  soundest  spots  —  by  seeing  the 
lumps  of  dry  red  clay  left  on  the  rails  by 
the  boots  of  previous  travelers  across  lots), 
past  prairie  warblers  and  my  first  Natural 
Bridge  bluebird,  to  the  bottom  of  the  valley. 
Then,  finding  myself  ahead  of  time,  I  turned 
aside  to  see  what  might  be  in  the  woods  of 
Buck  Hill.  There  was  little  to  mention :  a 
blossom  of  the  exquisite  vernal  fleur-de-lis, 
not  before  noticed  here,  and  at  the  toi)  two 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  267 

cerulean  warblers  in  full  song.  I  had  begun 
by  this  time  to  believe  that  this  rare  Vir- 
ginia species  would  turn  out  to  be  pretty 
common  hereabout  in  appropriate  places. 

Partly  to  test  the  truth  of  this  opinion  I 
planned  an  afternoon  trip  to  a  more  distant 
eminence,  which,  like  Buck  Hill  and  Lin- 
coln Heights,  was  covered  with  a  deciduous 
forest.  In  the  valley  woods  a  grouse  was 
drumming  —  a  pretty  frequent  sound  here 
—  and  Swainson  thrushes  were  singing. 
These  "New  Hampshire  thrushes,"  by  the 
bye,  are  singers  of  the  most  generous  sort, 
not  only  at  home,  but  on  their  travels,  all 
statements  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 
From  May  5  to  May  12  —  including  the 
latter  half  of  my  stay  at  Natural  Bridge, 
two  days  at  Afton,  and  one  day  in  the  cem- 
etery woods  at  Arlington  —  I  have  them 
marked  as  singing  daily,  and  one  day  at  the 
Bridge  they  were  heard  in  four  widely  sepa- 
rate places. 

The  hill  for  which  I  had  set  out  lay  on 
the  left  of  the  road,  and  between  me  and  it 
stood  a  row  of  negro  cabins.  As  I  came 
opposite  them  I  suddenly  caught  from  the 
hillsides  the  notes  of  a  Nashville  warbler. 


268  VIRGINIA 

—  or  so  I  believed.  This  was  a  bird  not 
yet  included  in  my  Virginia  list.  I  had 
puzzled  over  its  absence  —  the  country 
seeming  in  all  respects  adapted  to  it  —  till 
I  consulted  Dr.  Rives,  by  whom  it  is  set 
down  as  "  rare."  Even  then,  emboldened 
by  more  than  one  happy  experience,  I  told, 
myself  that  I  ought  to  find  it.  It  is  com- 
mon enough  in  New  England ;  why  should 
it  skip  Virginia  ?  And  here  it  was  ;  only  I 
must  go  through  the  formality  of  a  visual 
inspection,  especially  as  just  now  the  song 
came  from  rather  far  away.  I  entered  one 
of  the  house-yards,  —  nobody  objecting  ex- 
cept a  dog,  —  climbed  the  rear  fence,  and 
posted  up  the  steep,  rocky  hill,  past  a  hum- 
ming-bird sipping  at  a  violet,  and  by  and 
by  lifted  my  glass  upon  the  singer,  which 
had  been  in  voice  all  the  while.  By  this 
time  I  was  practically  sure  of  its  identity. 
In  imagination  I  could  already  see  its  bright 
yellow  breast.  The  name  was  as  good  as 
down  in  my  book,  —  Helminthophila  rufica- 
pilla.  But  the  glass,  having  no  imagina- 
tion, showed  me  a  white  breast  with  a  dark 
line  across  it,  —  a  cerulean  warbler  !  Verily, 
an  ear  is  a  vain  thing  for  safety.     See  your 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  269 

bird,  I  say,  and  take  a  second  look ;  and 
then  go  back  and  look  again.  In  another 
tree  a  parula  warbler  was  singing.  About 
him,  by  good  luck,  I  made  no  mistake.  As 
for  the  other  bird,  even  after  I  had  seen  his 
white  breast,  his  tune  —  with  which  he  was 
literally  spilling  over  —  continued  to  sound 
amazingly  Nashvillian ;  though  there  are 
few  warbler  songs  with  which  I  should  have 
supposed  myself  more  thorouglily  acquainted 
than  with  this  same  clearly  characterized 
Nashville  ditty,  —  a  hurried  measure  fol- 
lowed by  a  still  more  hurried  trill.  Perhaps 
this  particular  cerulean  had  a  note  pecul- 
iarly his  own.  I  should  be  glad  to  think 
so.  Perhaps,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fault 
was  all  with  the  man  who  heard  it ;  in  which 
case  the  less  said  the  better.  In  either 
event,  my  theory  as  to  the  cerulean's  com- 
monness was  in  a  fair  way  to  be  verified. 
It  was  weU  I  had  that  comfort. 

Before  I  could  get  down  the  hill  again 
I  must  stop  to  listen  to  a  gnatcatcher's 
squeaky  voice,  and  the  next  moment  I  saw 
the  bird,  and  another  with  him.  The  sec- 
ond one  proceeded  immediately  to  a  nest,  — 
conspicuously  displayed  on  an  oak  branch, 


270  VIRGINIA 

—  while  her  mate  hovered  about,  squeak- 
ing in  the  most  affectionate  manner.  Then 
away  they  flew  in  company,  and  after  a  long 
absence  were  back  again  for  another  turn  at 
building.  They  were  making  a  joy  of  their 
labor,  the  male  especially ;  but  it  is  true  he 
made  little  else  of  it.  With  him  I  was  at 
once  taken  captive,  —  so  happy,  so  proud, 
and  so  devoted.  A  paragon  of  amorous  be- 
havior, I  called  him  ;  having  the  French 
idea  of  "  assistance,"  no  doubt,  but  a  lover 
in  every  movement.  Never  was  the  good 
old-fashioned  phrase  "  waiting  upon  her " 
more  prettily  illustrated.  Birds  are  imagi- 
native creatures,  says  Richard  Jefferies,  and 
I  believe  it ;  and  this  fellow,  I  am  sure,  had 
endowed  his  spouse  with  all  the  graces  of 
all  the  birds  that  ever  were  or  ever  will  be. 
In  other  words,  he  was  truly  in  love.  The 
nest  was  already  shingled  throughout  with 
bits  of  gray  lichen,  laid  on  so  skillfully  that 
Father  Time  himself  might  have  done  it. 
That  is  the  right  way.  Let  the  house  look 
as  if  it  were  a  growth,  a  something  native 
to  the  spot,  only  less  old  than  the  ground 
it  rests  on.  The  gnatcatcher's  nest  is  always 
a  work   of   art.     Gnatcatcher    eggs    could 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  271 

hardly  be  counted  upon  to  hatch  in  any 
other. 

As  I  passed  up  the  road,  on  ray  way 
homeward,  a  flock  of  eight  nighthawks  were 
swimming  overhead.  Their  genius  runs,  not 
to  architecture,  but  to  grace  of  aerial  mo- 
tion. They  do  not  shoot  like  the  swifts,  nor 
skim  and  dart  like  the  swallows,  nor  circle 
on  level  wings  like  the  hawks,  but  have  an 
easy,  slow  -  seeming,  wavering,  gracefully 
"  limping  "  flight,  which  is  strictly  their  own. 
At  the  same  time  two  buzzards  met  in  mid- 
air, one  going  with  the  breeze,  the  other 
against  it.  I  could  have  told  the  fact,  with- 
out other  knowledge  of  the  wind's  course, 
by  the  different  carriage  of  the  two  pairs 
of  wings.  So  "the  bird  trims  her  to  the 
gale." 

Having  the  cerulean  warbler  question  still 
upon  my  mind,  and  seeing  another  hard- 
wood hill  within  easy  reach,  I  turned  my 
steps  thither.  Yes,  I  was  hardly  there  be- 
fore I  heard  a  bird  singing ;  but  the  reader 
may  be  sure  I  did  not  take  my  ear's  word 
for  it.  This  was  the  fourth  hilltop  I  had 
visited  to-day,  and  on  every  one  the  "  rare  " 
warbler  (but  it  is  well  known  to  be  abun- 


272  VIRGINIA 

dant  in  West  Virginia)  had  been  found 
without  so  much  as  a  five-minute  search. 

The  next  thing,  of  course,  was  to  find  the 
nest,  and  so  establish  the  fact  of  the  birds' 
breeding.  For  that  I  had  one  day  left ;  and 
it  may  be  said  at  once  that  I  spent  the 
greater  share  of  the  next  forenoon  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  grapevine  thicket,  before 
mentioned,  on  Lincoln  Heights.  A  male 
cerulean  was  there,  —  I  both  heard  and  saw 
him, — but  no  female  showed  herself;  and 
when  at  last  my  patience  ran  out,  I  gave  up 
the  point  for  good.  She  had  been  seen  in 
the  diligent  collection  of  building  materials, 
and  that,  considered  as  evidence,  was  nearly 
the  same  as  a  discovery  of  the  nest  itself. 
With  that  I  must  be  content.  The  com- 
fortable way  of  finding  birds'  nests  is  to 
happen  upon  them.  A  regular  hunt  —  a 
"dead  set,"  as  we  call  it  —  is  apt  to  be  a 
discouraging  business. 

My  present  attempt,  it  is  true,  was  a 
quiet,  inactive  piece  of  work,  little  more 
than  an  idle  waiting  for  the  lady  of  the  nest 
to  "give  herself  away;"  and  even  that  was 
relieved  by  much  looking  at  mountain  pro- 
spects and  frequent  turns  in  the  surround- 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  273 

ing  woods.  Once  a  crossbill  called  and  a 
cardinal  whistled  almost  in  the  same  breath, 
—  a  kind  of  northern  and  southern  duet. 
Then  a  cuckoo  and  a  dove  fell  to  cooing  on 
opposite  sides  of  me ;  very  different  sounds, 
though  in  our  poverty  we  designate  them  by 
the  same  word.  The  dove's  voice  is  a  thou- 
sand times  more  plaintive  than  the  cuckoo's, 
and  to  hear  it,  no  matter  how  near,  might 
come  from  a  mile  away;  as  I  have  known 
the  little  ground  dove  to  be  "mourning" 
from  a  fig-tree  at  my  elbow  while  I  was  en- 
deavoring to  sight  it  far  down  the  field.  The 
dove's  note  is  the  voice  of  the  future  or  of 
the  past,  I  am  not  certain  which.  A  few 
rods  from  the  spot  where  I  had  taken  my 
station,  a  single  deerberry  bush  (  Vaccinium 
stamineura)  was  in  profuse  bloom,  and 
made  a  really  pretty  show ;  loose  sprays  of 
white  flaring  blossoms  all  hanging  down- 
ward, each  with  its  cluster  of  long  protrud- 
ing stamens,  till  the  bush,  I  thought,  was 
like  a  miniature  candelabrum  of  electric 
lights.  As  Thoreau  might  have  said,  for  so 
homely  a  plant  the  deerberry  is  very  hand- 
some. Either  from  association  or  for  some 
other  reason,  it  wears  always  a  certain  com- 


274  VIRGINIA 

mon  look.  When  we  see  an  azalea  shrub 
or  even  an  apple-tree  in  bloom,  we  seem  to 
see  the  very  object  of  its  being.  The  flower 
calls  for  no  ulterior  result,  though  it  may 
have  one  ;  its  fruit  is  in  itself.  But  a  blos- 
soming blueberry  bush,  no  matter  of  what 
kind,  looks  like  a  plant  that  was  made  to 
bear  something  edible,  a  plant  whose  end  is 
use  rather  than  beauty. 

If  the  forenoon  had  been  indolent,  the 
noonday  hour  was  more  so.  I  descended 
the  hill  by  a  way  different  from  any  I  had 
yet  taken,  and  found  myself  at  the  foot  in 
a  public  road  running  through  a  cultivated 
valley.  The  day  was  peculiarly  comfort- 
able, with  a  bright  sun  and  a  temperate 
breeze,  —  ideal  weather  for  such  inactivities 
as  I  was  engaged  in.  Coming  to  an  old 
cherry-tree,  I  rested  awhile  in  its  shadow. 
A  farmhouse  was  not  far  off,  with  apple- 
trees  before  it,  a  barn  across  the  way,  and 
two  or  three  men  at  work  in  the  sloping 
ploughed  field  beyond.  To  one  as  lazy  as  I 
then  was,  it  is  almost  a  luxury  to  see  other 
men  hoeing  or  ploughing,  so  they  be  far 
enough  off  to  become  a  part  of  the  land- 
scape.     Near  the  barn   stood  a  venerable 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  275 

weeping  willow,  huge  of  girth,  a  very  patri- 
arch, yet  still  green  as  youth  itself.  Here 
were  good  farm-loving  birds,  a  pleasant  soci- 
ety. A  pair  of  house  wrens  came  at  once 
to  look  at  the  stranger,  and  one  of  them  in- 
terested rae  by  dusting  itself  in  the  road. 
Two  kingbirds  were  about  the  apple-trees 
(apple-tree  flycatchers  would  be  my  name 
for  them,  if  a  name  were  in  order),  now  sit- 
ting quiet  for  a  brief  space,  now  scaling  the 
heavens,  as  if  to  see  how  nearly  perpendicu- 
lar a  bird's  flight  could  be  made,  and  then 
tumbling  about  ecstatically  with  rapid  vocif- 
erations, after  the  half -crazy  manner  of  their 
kind.  The  kingbird  is  plentifully  endowed 
not  only  with  spirit,  but  with  spirits.  A 
goldfinch  sang  and  twittered  in  the  softest 
voice,  and  a  catbird  mewed.  From  a  quince 
bush,  a  little  farther  off,  a  wild  bobolinkian 
strain  was  repeated  again  and  again,  —  an 
orchard  oriole,  I  thought  most  likely.  I 
went  nearer  (to  the  shade  of  a  low  cedar), 
and  soon  had  him  in  sight,  —  a  young  male 
in  yellow  plumage,  with  a  black  throat- 
patch.  The  song  was  extremely  taking,  and 
the  more  I  heard  it,  the  more  it  seemed  to 
have  the  true  bobolink  ring.      The  quince 


276  VIRGINIA 

bushes  were  in  pale  pink  bloom,  and  the 
branches  of  a  tall  snowball  -  tree  in  the 
unfenced  front  yard  of  the  house  fairly 
drooped  under  their  load  of  white  globular 
clusters.  Just  opposite  was  a  sweet-brier 
bush,  "the  pastoral  eglantine,"  half  dead 
like  others  that  I  had  noticed  here,  and  like 
the  whole  tribe  of  its  New  England  brothers 
and  sisters.  Here  as  in  Massachusetts  a 
blight  was  upon  them;  they  were  living 
with  difficulty.  It  would  be  good,  I  thought, 
to  see  the  sweet-brier  once  where  it  flour- 
ishes ;  where  the  beauty  of  the  plant  matches 
the  beauty  and  sweetness  of  the  rose  it 
bears.  Can  it  be  that  it  is  not  quite  hardy 
even  in  Virginia? 

My  seat  under  the  snowball-tree  (to  the 
coolness  of  which  I  had  moved  from  under 
the  cedar)  had  presently  to  be  given  up. 
The  women  of  the  house  became  aware  of 
me,  and  out  of  a  bashful  regard  for  my  own 
comfort  I  took  the  road  again.  Soon  I 
passed  a  double  house,  with  painted  doors 
and  two-sash  windows  !  And  in  one  of  the 
windows  were  lace  curtains  !  It  was  won- 
derful, —  I  was  obliged  to  confess  it,  in  spite 
of  a  deep-seated  masculine  prejudice  against 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  277 

all  such  contrivances,  —  it  was  wonderful 
what  an  air  of  elegance  they  conferred, 
though  the  paint  of  the  doors  was  to  be  con- 
sidered, of  course,  in  the  same  connection. 

By  this  time  the  road  was  approaching  the 
slope  of  Buck  Hill,  and  high  noon  as  it  was, 
I  must  run  up  for  another  half-hour  among 
the  old  trees  at  the  top,  —  with  no  special 
result  except  to  disturb  a  summer  tanager, 
who  fired  off  volley  after  volley  of  objurga- 
tory expletives,  and  altogether  seemed  to  be 
in  a  terrible  state  of  mind.  His  excitement 
was  all  for  nothing ;  unless  —  what  was 
likely  enough  —  it  served  to  give  him  favor 
in  the  eyes  of  his  mate,  who  may  be  pre- 
sumed to  have  been  somewhere  within  hear- 
ing. Lovers,  I  believe,  are  supposed  to 
welcome  an  opportunity  to  play  the  hero. 

My  last  afternoon  at  the  Bridge  was  de- 
voted to  a  longish  tramp  into  a  new  piece  of 
country,  where  for  an  hour  I  had  hopes  of 
adding  at  least  a  name  or  two  to  my  Virginia 
bird-list,  which  for  twenty-four  hours  had 
been  at  a  standstill.  I  came  unexpectedly 
upon  a  mill,  and  what  was  of  greater  ac- 
count, a  millpond,  —  "a  long,  dirty  pond,'* 
as  my  uncivil  pencil  describes  it.    Here  were 


278  VIRGINIA 

swallows,  as  might  have  been  foreseen,  but 
the  most  careful  scrutiny  revealed  nothing 
beyond  the  two  species  already  catalogued, 
—  the  barn  swaUow  and  the  rough-wing. 
Here,  too,  in  an  apple  orchard,  were  a  Balti- 
more oriole  gathering  straws,  a  phoebe,  a 
golden  warbler,  and  several  warbling  vireos, 
the  only  ones  so  far  noticed  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  single  bird  at  Pulaski.  About  the 
border  of  the  pond  were  spotted  sandpipers 
(no  solitaries,  to  my  disappointment)  and 
two  male  song  sparrows.  This  last  species  I 
saw  but  twice  in  Virginia,  —  along  the  bushy 
shore  of  the  creek  at  Pulaski,  and  here  be- 
side this  millpond.  Wherever  the  song  spar- 
row is  scarce,  it  is  likely  to  be  restricted  to 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  water.  Even 
in  Massachusetts  it  is  pretty  evident  that 
such  places  are  its  first  choice.  As  I  some- 
times say,  the  song  sparrow  likes  a  swamp 
as  well  as  the  swamp  sparrow;  but  the 
species  being  so  exceedingly  abundant,  there 
are  not  swampy  spots  enough  to  go  round, 
and  the  majority  of  the  birds  have  to  shift 
as  they  can,  along  bushy  fence-rows  and  in 
pastures  and  scrub-lands. 

The  building  interested  me  almost  as  much 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  279 

as  the  sandpipers  and  the  sparrows.  It  was 
painted  red,  and  served  not  only  as  a  mill, 
but  as  a  post-office  ("  Red  Mills  ")  and  a 
"  department  store,"  with  its  sign,  "  Dry 
Goods,  Groceries,  <S:c."  A  tablet  informed 
the  passer-by  that  the  mill  had  been  "  estab- 
lished "  in  1798,  destroyed  in  1881,  and  re- 
opened in  1891 ;  and  on  the  same  tablet, 
or  another,  was  the  motto,  "  Laborare  est 
orare."  I  regretted  not  to  meet  the  pro- 
prietor, but  he  was  nowhere  in  sight,  and  I 
felt  a  scruple  about  intruding  upon  the  time 
of  a  man  who  was  at  once  postmaster,  miller, 
farmer,  storekeeper,  and  scholar.  With  that 
motto  before  me,  —  "Apologia  pro  vita  sua," 
he  might  have  called  it,  —  such  an  intrusion 
would  have  seemed  a  sacrilege. 

What  I  remember  best  about  the  whole 
establishment  is  the  song  of  a  blue-gray 
gnatcatcher,  to  which  I  stopped  to  listen 
under  a  low  savin-tree  on  a  bluff  above  the 
mill.  He  was  directly  over  my  head,  sing- 
ins:  somewhat  in  the  manner  of  a  catbird, 
but  I  had  almost  to  hold  my  breath  to  hear 
him.  It  was  amazing  that  a  bird's  voice 
could  be  spun  so  tine.  A  mere  shadow  of  a 
sound,  I  was  ready  to  say.     It  was  only  by 


280  VIRGINIA 

the  happiest  accident  that  I  did  not  miss  it 
altogether.  Then,  when  the  fellow  had  fin- 
ished his  music,  he  began  squeaking  in  that 
peculiarly  teasing  manner  of  his,  and  kept 
it  up  till  I  was  weary.  The  gnatcatcher  is  a 
creature  by  himself,  a  miniature  bird,  won- 
derfully slender,  with  a  strangely  long  tail, 
which  he  carries  jauntily  and  makes  the 
most  of  on  all  occasions.  But  if  he  only 
knew  it,  his  chief  claim  to  distinction  is  his 
singing  voice.  If  the  humming-bird's  is 
attenuated  in  the  same  proportion  (and  who 
can  assert  the  contrary?),  he  may  be  the 
finest  vocalist  in  the  world,  and  we  none  the 
wiser. 

I  was  to  start  northward  by  the  next 
noonday  train,  and  had  already  laid  out  my 
forenoon's  work.  Before  breakfast  I  took 
my  last  look  at  the  famous  bridge,  and  my 
last  stroll  through  Cedar  Creek  ravine.  I 
had  been  there  every  day,  I  think,  and  had 
always  found  something  new.  This  time  it 
was  a  slippery-elm-tree  by  the  saltpetre  cave. 
I  had  brought  away  a  twig,  and  was  sitting 
in  my  door  putting  a  lens  upon  it  and  upon 
a  sedum  specimen,  when  the  veranda  was 
suddenly  taken  possession  of  by  a  dozen  or 


AT  NATURAL  BRIDGE  281 

more  of  young  men.  They  were  just  up  from 
the  railway  station,  and  were  deep  in  a  dis- 
cussion of  ways  and  means,  —  tickets,  lunch- 
eons, and  time-tables.  Then,  in  a  momen- 
tary lull  in  the  talk,  I  heard  a  quiet  voice 
say,  "Sedum."  They  were  a  company  of 
Johns  Hopkins  men  out  upon  a  geological 
trip.  So  I  learned  at  noon  when  we  met  at 
the  railway  station ;  and  a  pleasant  botanical 
hour  I  had  with  one  or  two  of  them  as  we 
rode  northward.  Now,  on  the  piazza,  tliey 
did  not  tarry  long ;  time  was  precious  to 
them  also  ;  and  as  soon  as  they  had  gone 
down  to  the  bridge  I  set  off  in  the  opposite 
direction.  My  final  ramble  was  to  be  to 
Lincoln  Heights,  to  see  once  more  that 
magnificent  avenue  of  trees  and  that  beauti- 
ful mountain  prospect.  The  cerulean  war- 
bler was  singing  as  usual,  but  there  \vas  no 
sign  of  his  mate,  though  I  could  not  do  less 
than  to  wait  a  little  while  by  the  grapevine 
thicket  in  a  vain  hope  of  her  ap})earance. 
Here,  as  in  the  ravine,  I  had  not  yet  seen 
everything.  Straight  before  me  stood  a  locust 
tree,  every  branch  hung  with  long,  fragrant 
white  clusters.  I  had  overlooked  it  com- 
pletely till  now.     If  I  learned  nothing  else 


282  VIRGINIA 

in  Virginia,  I  ought  to  have  learned  some- 
thing about  my  limitations  as  an  "  observer." 
But  I  need  not  have  traveled  so  far  for  such 
a  purpose.  Wisdom  so  common  as  that  may 
be  picked  up  any  day  in  a  man's  own  door- 
yard. 


INDEX 


Anemone,  1')o,  21(). 

Arbor-vitae,  217. 

Arbutus,   trailing,  133,  148, 

153,  158   '205. 
Asplenium  Rata  -  muraria, 

227. 
Azalea :  — 

arborescens,  138, 

calendulacea,  138. 

nudiflora,  137,  20G. 

vaseyi,  137. 

viscosa,  138. 

Barren  strawberry,  153,  178. 
Blackbird :  — 

crow,  202. 

red-winged,  123. 
Bladder-nut,  216. 
Bloodroot,  153, 1(50,  178,  210. 
Bluebird,  125,  2()(). 
Blue-eyed  grass,  244. 
Bobolink,  208. 
Box  turtle,  248. 
Butterflies,  218. 
Buzzard,   turkey,   12G,  132, 
159,  271. 

Cancer-root,  260. 
(,^arolina  hemlock,  03. 
Catbird,  51,  173,  li>S,  275. 
Catchfly,  scarlet,  244. 
Chat,  5,  126,  203,  239,  247, 

257. 
Checkerberry,  133. 
(.'lieilanthes  vestita,  229. 
Chewink,  132,  159. 
Chickadee,    Carolina,    126, 

148,  184,  UH),  239. 
Chinaberry-tree,  8. 


Chokeberry,  132. 
Clintonia,    white -flowered, 

46. 
Columbine,  214,  218. 
Cowslip,  264. 
Crab-apple  tree,  50. 
Cranesbill,  216. 
Creeper : — 

black-and-white,      148, 
155,  196,  264. 

brown,  41,  74,  78,  126. 
Crossbill,  red,  159,  180,  249, 

272. 
Cuckoo,  273. 
Cystopteris  bulbifera,  228. 

Deerberry,  273. 
Dogwood,     flowering,    208, 
I      257. 
Dove :  — 

Carolina,  196,  273. 
ground,  273. 
Draba,  ramosissima,  214. 

Finch,  purple,  230. 
Fish-hawk,  209. 
Flycatcher:  — 

Acadian,  125,  239. 

olive-sided,  41,  94,  126. 
Fringed  polygala,  KJO. 

Galax,  134,  154. 
;  Gaylussacia  ursina,  133. 
I  Ginger,  wild,  21t). 
'  Gnatcatcher,  blue-gray,  21, 
I      23,  231,  269,  279. 
I  Goldfinch,  132,  211,  230,  275. 
'  Grackle,  bronzed,  202. 


284 


INDEX 


Grosbeak  :  — 

blue,  249. 

cardinal,  125,  224,  272. 

rose-breasted,    51,    119, 

128,  132, 180,  187,  258. 

Grouse,  ruffed,  155, 159,  267. 

Halesia-tree,  38,  50. 
Hepatiea,  153^  160,  178,  216. 
Houstonia,  153. 
Huckleberry,  132. 
Humming-bird,  23,  203,  235, 
241,  268,  280. 

Indigo-bird,  231,  255. 
Iris,   vernal,   134,  160,  205, 
266. 

Judas-tree,  146,  208,  257. 

KiUdeer,  199. 
Kingbird,  275. 
Kingfisher,  49,  208. 

Lady's  slipper,  yellow,  46, 
Laurel,  mountain,  140. 
Lungwort,  172. 

Magnolia  Fraseri,  93. 

Mandrake,  216. 

Maryland  yellow-tliroat,122, 

209. 
Mitrewort,  178,  216. 

Night-hawk,  231,  271. 
Nuthatch :  — 

red-breasted  (Canadian), 
40,  126,  159. 

white-breasted,  196, 239. 

Orchis  spectabilis,  216. 
Oriole :  — 

Baltimore,  124, 202, 278. 

orchard,  275. 
Osprey,  209. 

Oven-bird,  132, 157, 195, 196, 
223,  230. 


Painted-cup,  94,  134. 
Pellaea  atropurpurea,  227. 
Pewee,  wood,  203,  239. 
Phalarope,  Wilson's,  95. 
Phoebe,  75, 123,  224, 230, 278. 
PotentiUa  tridentata,  133. 

Ragwort,  216. 
Raven,  22,  68. 
Redstart,  240. 
Rhododendron:  — 

Catawbiense,  137,  141. 

maximum,  137. 

punctatum,  136. 
Robin,  51,  198. 
Rose  acacia,  134. 

Sand  myrtle,  134. 
Sandpiper :  — 
solitary,  72. 
spotted,  73,  199,  278. 
Shadbush,  153,  160. 
Shortia  galacifolia,  93. 
Snowbird,  Carolina,  78,  115, 

126,  132. 
Sparrow :  — 

chipping,  148,  230. 
field,  132, 148,  159,  205. 
lark,  190. 

song,  12S,  1<)9,  278. 
white-throated,  30,  157, 
1  IIH),  239,  255. 

Spring  beauty,  216. 
Stone-crop,  216. 
Sumach,  fragrant,  260. 
Swallow  :  — 

barn,  74,  75,  201,  278.^_ 
rough  -  winged,    32,    75, 
201,  218,  278. 
Sweetbrier    (Eglantine)    67, 

276. 
Swift,    chimney,    132,   145, 
201,  230. 

Tanager :  — 

scarlet,  132,  203. 
summer,  23, 231, 240, 277 


INDEX 


285 


Thrasher,  brown,  30,  fd,  12(5, 

14S,  lite,  liis. 
Thnisli :  — 

Louisiana      water,     0(5, 

r-'(3,  L'o;{,  21*),  2.{(>. 

olive -backed      (Swain- 
son),  2;5,  24(1,  247,  253, 
2()7. 
wood,  ")!,  247. 
Trillium :  — 

fjrandiflorum,  215. 
stylosutn,  aO. 
Tufted   titmouse,  120,   llKi, 

223 
Tulip-tree,  160,  166,  217. 

Violets,  133,   1()0,  IGl,   162, 

166,  177,  214. 
Vireo :  — 

mountain  solitary,  118, 
red-eyed,  11!),  195,  223, 

230,  255, 
warbling,  202,  278. 
white-eyed,  127. 
yellow  -  throated,     UK). 
230,  255. 

Walking  fern,  217. 
Warbler:  — 

Blackburnian,  126, 128, 

195,  240,  255. 
blaekpoll,  127,  liKJ. 
black  -  throated     blue, 
121,  126,  180,  240,254, 
255. 
black  -  throated  green, 

23,  195,  255. 
blue  yellow-backed  (pa- 
rula),45,  123,  195,  22.!. 
230,  248,  258,  265. 


Canadian,  121,  126,  240. 
Cape  May,  2(J1. 
WarijJer  :  - 

cerulean,  2:i<»,  251,  255, 

258,265,267,268,271*. 
2S1. 

chestnut-sided,  12(),  1.32, 

195,  1«h;,  255. 
golden-winged,    21.   51, 

126,  19.".,  195. 
hooded,  125,  1.5,5,  2.54. 
Kt'iitucky.  125,  127,  1.56. 
magnolia,  2;;5,  2<k{. 
myrtle,    127,    195,    liMi, 

255. 
Nashville,  269. 
pine,  23,  195. 
prairie,  23,  127,  206,  2.'i0, 

266. 
redpoll,  195. 
summer  yellow  (golden), 

127,  195,  27.S. 
worm-eating,  17S,  195. 

Whippoorwill,5, 59,  231,  247. 
Woodpecker :  — 

downv.  1!>6. 

hairy,' 241. 

golden-winged,  1.59,  VM\. 

pileated,  .32,  4S,  ISO,  244 i, 
2.".0. 

red-headed,  241. 

yellow-bellied,  180. 
Wren  :  - 

Bewick,   126,    148,  19vS, 
202. 

Carolina,  12(5,  231. 

house,  1.50,  19.S,  203,  275. 

winter,  155,  198. 


,  Xanthorrhiza,  189. 


CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  U.  S.  A 

ELECTROTYPED  AND  PRINTED  BY 

H.  O.   HOUGHTON  AND   CO. 


S02775254  H 


